On Your Own

"Fran!" you yell, and rush to her side. She's unconscious. You try to wake her, to no avail. You pillow her head with a lab coat while you ponder what to do next.

You take a look at the things you've got with you in the lab's back room.

THE RACK OF ANTIBIOTICS

There are eight small bottles in the carrying rack. You read the labels carefully.

• "Penicillin G"
• "Amphotericin B"
• "Gentamicin"
• "Amantadine"
• "Ethambutol"
• "Methicillin"
• "Acyclovir"
• "Tetracycline"
  

THE KNAPSACK

Fran has a large book titled "Black's Medical Diagnosis 2004" stuck in her backpack. Jammed safely under it you find a culture dish she brought from the hospital. It's labeled "Gentamicin," with a paper circle stuck in the middle of the agar.

BLACK'S BOOKCULTURE DISH

THE BIOLOGY TEXTBOOK

You flip to the book's index, and see it has a section entitled "Antimicrobial Chemotherapy."

TEXTBOOK

THE TEST MICE

The mice that Zack inoculated scamper around in their cages -- all except for one.

THE BLEEDING MAN

Cautiously you look through the window in the door to the lab. The bleeding man is slumped tiredly against a desk, blood dripping off slack hands.

Suddenly you notice a poster on the wall behind him. It shows how bacteria are classified by shape: a spherical one is a coccus, a sausage is a bacillus, a corkscrew one is a spirillum, and so on.

You wish you could have another look at those bacteria. "Hmmm," you think. Maybe you could make it to the microscope without the man noticing you.

"Well," you say to yourself, "I think I know which of Fran's antibiotics is most likely to save this poor guy's life."

Solve the mystery

An Access Excellence Science Mystery sponsored by Genentech, Inc.