The semester is almost finished and it all seems as if it lasted for some very few days. As we characterized many enterococci from water samples collected from the Patilla’s beach, there were so many interesting questions that rose that I was not quite sure which one I would preferred to answer first. The possible implications of the presence of some of the suggested species are so interesting that I just cannot wait for the finals to be over so that I can dedicate a good amount of time to the investigation and finish with all the biochemial tests.

I have learned that there are only five pigmented enterococcus species and from those five; four species have clinical significance to humans. That is very interesting because I have identified more than 10 % of my isolates as yellow pigmented enterococci. In order to better understand this characteristic and other phenotypic and genetic characteristics from the genus, I have studied some aspects of microbial physiology and prokaryote genetics. This seems to be only the beginning of a long learning experience because the more that I study, learn and discover, the more there is to know.

The biggest challenge during this semester of research has being to manage the time need it in order to maintain all the isolates up-to-date on the progress of the biochemical tests. I have about 200 isolates from two water samples, and in order to obtain considerable data about the enterococci ecosystem at the Patilla’s beach, I have to take into consideration a good portion of that community. Balancing time between the very time consuming procedures that I have to follow for every test and the time required for my college course have definitely proven to be the hardest part of the research.

However, as hard as it may be sometimes, my research team has always helped me when I have needed them the most. That has being a key factor in the progress of the research because when I have needed a little extra hand, there has being not one, but many hands looking forward to help me in whatever I may need. For that reason, I would like to appreciate all of the help from Gustavo, Julian & Rose who have reached out to help me on numerous occasions. Thank You Guys!!!

For the next semester, I expect to have more time available for the research, therefore, substantially increasing the productivity of my research. This will allow me to create the genetic catalog for the isolates from the Patilla’s Beach. I will test some of the available methods for detection on enterococci in order to identify methods for the quantification of organisms from a sample for the design of population density measuring tools. Before that, I will continue to work during the summer in order to characterize more phenotypic differences among the isolates, so that I could more accurately identify the species among the sample.