Soil from Packers' practice fields could hold the secret to saving lives. Here's how.
Student researchers will hunt for bacteria to beat antibiotic-resistant diseases at the Green Bay Packers' practice fields, among other places.
Soil from Packers' practice fields could hold the secret to saving lives. Here's how. Student researchers will hunt for bacteria to beat antibiotic-resistant diseases at the Green Bay Packers' practice fields, among other places. Check out this story on postcrescent.com: https://www.postcrescent.com/story/news/2019/09/11/soil-packers-practice-fields-might-provide-next-life-saving-bacteria/2279068001/
Madeline Heim, Appleton Post-Crescent Published 11:06 a.m. CT Sept. 11, 2019 | Updated 12:00 p.m. CT Sept. 11, 2019
Aaron Popkey, director of public affairs for the Green Bay Packers, holds a soil sample from a practice field for the Tiny Earth kickoff at UW-Green Bay Monday. (Photo: Daniel Moore/UW-Green Bay Marketing)
The next big thing to emerge from the Green Bay Packers' practice fields might not be a player. It could be life-saving bacteria instead.
A team of student researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay and area high schools will examine a soil sample from the field as part of the Tiny Earth project, which aims to identify bacteria in the earth strong enough to beat diseases that have become resistant to antibiotics.
"Tiny Earth is like the linchpin that connects all these things to try to mitigate this problem we're having," said Brian Merkel, a biology professor at UW-Green Bay who oversees the course in its fall semester.
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Over 70% of the antibiotics we use today come from soil bacteria, Merkel said. But the discovery of new drugs has slowed over time, from 16 new discoveries between 1983 and 1987 to just two between 2008 and 2012. And a 2013 analysis from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that at least two million people contract an antibiotic-resistant infection each year.
Tiny Earth, which UW-Madison professor Jo Handelsman launched in 2018, now comprises nearly 10,000 students across the globe collecting and studying soil samples to try to find a solution to the problem.
This year, Merkel's college students will partner with students from Green Bay West, East, Bay Port, Ashwaubenon, De Pere and West De Pere high schools to study the soils — a critical piece of the puzzle, he said, because another Tiny Earth goal is to inspire more people to pursue STEM careers.
And it's working. The students who participate in the project love it.
Soil from a Green Bay Packers' practice field that will be analyzed as part of the Tiny Earth project to identify life-saving antibiotics. (Photo: Daniel Moore/UW-Green Bay Marketing)
"Why?" Merkel said. "Because it's a real problem and they see how they're playing a direct role in addressing it."
Next year, they're looking to expand to more high schools in the region.
Only one lucky team will work with the Packers' soil, but all of them will identify individual bacteria from their specific soil sample and test them to look for "activity of interest," or an ability to kill even more resistant strains.
What everyone is hoping for, of course, is that someone will strike gold: find a type of bacteria that really shows promise. If that happens, it'll be shipped to a special UW-Madison lab to be inspected more thoroughly.
On Dec. 6, Lambeau Field will host the second Tiny Earth in Titletown symposium, where the students will present their findings. Merkel said last year's event "exceeded (his) wildest dreams" and highlighted the possibilities for partnerships to tackle the issue.
After the symposium, his students opened their laptops and uploaded their data to the worldwide database that tracks each and every Tiny Earth finding. In the years since it's been up and running, he said, the group has already made one big discovery.
"The larger this crowd gets in terms of the student-sourcing effort, I think you would reasonably expect you're going to see a greater frequency of discoveries," Merkel said. "It's like an army."
And if the big find just happens to be from the Packers' field? The NFL team gets to name the compound.
So with any luck, something like "Rodgerscillin" could be hard at work saving lives in the future.
Contact Madeline Heim at 920-996-7266 or mheim@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter at @madeline_heim.
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