Modeling Bacteria Growth and Antibiotic Interaction with Cellular Automata

PAC Gym

We constructed a cellular automata model to show the growth of bacteria and its interaction with antibiotics. The model uses stochastic rules to model the probability of a bacteria being resistant to a given antibiotic (out of 10 total antibiotics present in the model). The model incorporates the Disk Diffusion Method to compare the resistance of bacteria to many different types of antibiotics. Differences in bacteria types for the given antibiotics are also compared in the model. The goal of this cellular automaton model is to not only serve as a visual representation of the interaction between bacteria and antibiotics, but also be much more efficient than performing tests in the lab in terms of both time and money.