Help - preserving bacteria in petri dish as art!? - (Oct/24/2016 )

Hi all,

I have an art student who wishes to grow bacteria from swabs on her body and display this as art.

I have been looking at sealing the plate with epoxy glue to preserve the bacteria but can't find much information on this. How does one do this and how safe would it be to handle afterwards?

Does anyone have any other suggestions on how to seal the plates?

If all else fails she will have to settle with just having photographs... 

TIA. 

Epoxy would work, so long as you can seal the plate completely. Note that the bacteria will most likely keep on growing unless stored (and viewed?) in a cold location. You may be able to fix the plate using something like formaldehyde, but this is likely to change the color of the plates and colonies.

Thanks for the advice. Luckily for me she has changed her mind and want's to do something completely different now!