I'm in my senior year now, and at my school this means we have to do a senior research project. The hypothesis is due this week, so I figure I better start >_>

My mom works at a local university, in the biotech department, and thus I have "connections" to professors who do research and have labs I can use if I just ask, for projects like this. I did it back in 10th grade for science fair, in fact.

Now, I have been sending emails to a plant & soil sciences department professor, and I tossed some ideas around about testing alkaloid concentrations in plants based on various factors, which he decided would be very novel. He did say that it would be interesting to see how localization of alkaloids would deter/attract microorganisms. He also said that tobacco or tomato would be a perfect system, and I could use the labs for in vitro testing etc.

Now, from what I know about alkaloids in plants, they are usually defense mechanisms, and some are used as durgz. Now, I assume that because they are there to repel animals and other harmful things, they would deter microorganisms. But then again, microorganisms are used to promote plant growth...

Do you guys think this would be a novel experiment, or does it seem pointless? Any suggestions? I would just ask the professor, but he's in India until the 22nd >.< Also, searching on google didn't really lead me anywhere.

What is the experiment? It sounds like it could be interesting, but how will you control alkaloids and how will you assay for microorganisms? Seems like a good hypothesis that they might repel some microorganisms and even attract others.