Everyone knows the germs in hospitals are getting more resistant to penicillin and other therapeutic drugs.

But what about garden-variety bacteria out there in the fields, suburban lawns and woods?

Two local college professors aim to find out.

The husband-and-wife team of David Bowne and Debra Wohl will lead eight student researchers in testing soil bacteria from about 250 diverse sites in the county this summer.

Funded by a $15,000 grant from Earthwatch Institute's Student Challenge Awards Program, the two-week study is among the first of its kind.

"The rise of antibiotic resistance in bacteria is a major public health concern," said Bowne, a visiting associate professor of biology at Franklin & Marshall College.

But while scientists have probed such bacteria in aquatic systems, they're only starting to scrutinize its distribution on dry land.

Wohl, an assistant professor of biology at Elizabethtown College, said the local team will be mapping patterns of resistance or, conversely, the lack thereof.

"If we do find clusters," she said, "it would [raise] the question" why.

Friend and foe
Nature is one of the multiple-choice answers.

Microbes routinely armor themselves against antibiotics secreted by other microbes, forming pools of resistance.

Too, according to Wohl's theory, micro-organisms surviving in acidic soils might naturally be hardier.

Human agents are also suspect, but have not yet been correlated to levels of resistance on the land.

"Farming practices do put antibiotics into the environment," Bowne noted.

Then there are heavy metals, such as lead and mercury, to which some microbes have evolved immunity.

The genes that convey this protection are also somehow linked to drug resistance, Bowne explained.

"It is going to be very difficult to tease apart what is human-caused and what is not human-caused."

Microbes are both friend and foe to man.

For example, there are good E. coli strains as well as bad. Also, Wohl said, bacteria are a source for human antibiotics.

But people have used germ-fighting drugs so frequently that the germs have found ways to bypass them.

According to the federal Centers for Disease Control, more than 70 percent of the bacteria that sicken hospital patients can ward off at least one widely prescribed drug.

Wohl said bacteria can transmit resistance generationally or laterally by sharing DNA.

Lateral exchanges can occur even among strains of bacteria not closely related, she said.

Her and Bowne's project, titled "Mapping Bacteria Across a Landscape," will examine two species of surface bacteria. One commonly inhabits the soil while the other is widely associated with animal waste.

Researchers will use sampling tubes that pick up about a tablespoonful of earth per bite, Wohl said. Two samples will be taken from each of the 250 sites, which are to be selected randomly using Bowne's geographic information systems skills.

One sample will be analyzed in a college lab for metals, the other for bacteria.

The scientists have yet to decide if they'll test throughout the county or stick to one or more local watersheds. Wohl said the team will likely stratify its findings according to land use and soil types.

"There's a huge number of variables," she added.

One of them is landowner cooperation, which will determine the success of the project, according to Bowne.

Wohl said the public health implications of the study are already piquing interest at the state Department of Health and the Department of Environmental Protection.

"Mapping Bacteria" is one of about a dozen Student Challenge Awards Programs nationwide, Bowne said.

Besides getting all of their expenses paid, students will benefit from the project by experiencing real-life research.

"We'll have a captive audience," Wohl joked, but the students' help will be invaluable in helping to quickly process a large volume of material.

The intense approach precludes the need to control for seasonal and weather-related variables, Wohl said.

"Mapping Bacteria" kicks off July 8.

"I'm optimistic [that] we should get some exciting results," she said.