Many scientists have claimed that megadoses of ascorbic acid (vitamin C) help lessen the symptoms of the common cold. Many other scientists have also refuted this claim. I decided to test the theory of vitamin C's effect on viruses, and the purpose of this research was to determine if

ettect on preventing the viral infection of coliphage T4 on E. coli. If my hypothesis is correct, then megadoses of it will yield higher survival rates of the bacteria versus those untreated with vitamin C.

Methods: For the first of my final two experiments, I set up 18 buffered nutrient broth solutions with E. coli bacteria. They were then split up into sets of 3, with varying amounts of ascorbic acid (1.0g, 0.75g, 0.50g, & 0.25g), with 2 separate control groups. Each of the sets had 200 microliters of the coliphage T4, with the exception of one control group. To view the results of the treatment, the suspensions were plated, and then dilution spectrophotometer analysis was performed on the suspensions to relate turbidity to bacterial growth. For the second of my two experiments, I did virtually the same thing, but introduced the ascorbic acid before I set the buffer solution to a pH of 7. That way, the solution already had the ascorbic acid before I added the nutrient broth powder, and the pH would stay constant. I plated the results and did spectrophotometer analysis of the 100% solutions.

Results: The result of my experiment supported my hypothesis. Significance tests showed that the plates with ascorbic acid grew significantly more bacteria than the control plate with 200 microliters of the phage and Og of ascorbic acid. ANOVA statistical analysis tests proved there to be no difference between the ascorbic acid groups together.

Conclusions: Ascorbic acid does have a significant effect on increasing the survival rate of the bacteria, either by reducing the effectiveness of the phage or by killing it altogether. According to this study, the amount of ascorbic acid does not seem to affect the results.