Eric Nelson Delgado

NEW JERSEY

Eric Nelson Delgado, 18, of Bayonne, studied the use of novel efflux pump inhibitors (EPI) to improve the efficacy of antibiotics against multidrug resistant bacteria for his Intel Science Talent Search medicine and health project. One way bacteria disable antibiotics is to use an efflux pump mechanism to expel the antibiotics from their cells. Eric tested a compound known to disable a simple efflux pump in S. aureus on a more complex pump in E. coli, a nonpathogenic bacteria. The compound was not initially effective because it could not penetrate the E. coli membrane, but Eric found that a modified form of it, diosmetin, could enter the E. coli cell and effectively disable the more complex pump. Eric states that further research will be required to determine if diosmetin is also effective against virulent strains of bacteria. Eric is captain of the mock trial and debate teams and president of the science club at Bayonne High School and works as a veterinary assistant. His many awards include an Intel ISEF 2007 Best in Category Grand Award in microbiology. The son of Nelson Delgado and Virginia Davila, he hopes to study molecular biology at Princeton or Harvard and work with under-privileged teens interested in science.