Taylor Arnell knew she wanted research to be a part of her undergrad at MacEwan. The Biological Sciences Honours student used that drive to tackle real-world issues when she began looking into drug resistance in certain bacteria through a Summer Research Studentship with Alberta Innovates.

The program allowed Arnell to spend eight weeks researching under Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences Dr. Randi Guest, looking into what makes one specific type of bacteria – Pseudomonas aeruginosa – so resistant to treatment.

“Think of a bacterial species as having an outer shield that doesn’t let antibiotics get into it,” she explains. “We want to know how the bacteria maintain this shield so that we can understand resistance to develop treatments that kill the bacteria.”

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is referred to as a gram-negative bacteria, which means it has a layered outer membrane acting as its shield, causing it to be extra drug resistant.

“How the bacteria maintain their structure is super critical to keeping antibiotics out,” Arnell explains. In this instance, when the outer membrane is damaged by an antibiotic, there’s another internal layer that flips into place to continue to protect the bacteria.

“Damage to the outer membrane makes the bacteria more permeable,” Arnell explains. “If you were to take another antibiotic to try and damage the little spot that flipped, that's going to make it more susceptible, and it's going to kill the bacteria.”

Her end goal with the research is to understand how certain proteins in those shield walls interact, and how they can be targeted. In time, she hopes that the information will help develop an antibiotic that will successfully kill the species of bacteria, which has been labelled as one of the most critical by the World Health Organization.

Arnell’s research earned her second place and a cash prize at the 2024 Summer Research Studentship final presentations, and she’s now going on to present at Student Research Day later this month.

Arnell hopes to one day become a doctor, but her research experiences have inspired a love of lab work, too.

“The nerd in me loved learning all the lab techniques,” she says. “Finding your first result is the best reward.”

To be considered for a future Student Snapshots story, or to suggest someone we should feature, please contact our communications team at communications@macewan.ca.