• Question: You say that you work with micro-organisms such as E.coli, are you currently doing anything thing related to the E.coli outbreak?

    Asked by danrumford to Johnson, Daz, Cat, Holly, Pamela on 13 Jun 2011. This question was also asked by matthewbakerwtflolz, charlottedavies.
    • Photo: Johnson Soronnadi

      Johnson Soronnadi answered on 10 Jun 2011:

      At the moment no case of the current E.coli outbreak has been reported in my area, though we are on alert especilally samples from patients who recently visited Germany. The difficulty with the current E.coli is that is previously unknown strain(type) of bacterium which attack the kidney and nervous system . Nevertheless, I still work with E.coli 0157 and look out for E.coli 0157 in stool samples coming to the laboratory from patients suspected of having enteric infection, like diarrhoea.

    • Photo: Cat O'Connor

      Cat O'Connor answered on 13 Jun 2011:

      Hi Dan, Matthewbakerwtflolz and Charlottedavies,

      This E. coli outbreak is really fascinating right? I’m not working on it but one of the guys in my work is part of a group who are in charge of making up a plan to handle such an outbreak if it occurs in Scotland! A lot of the work being done to find the source of the outbreak would have been done by people like me, epidemiologists and statisticians, by using data collected from interviewing people who got sick and also people who didn’t get sick. By looking at this data, they found that more people got sick after eating bean sprouts! It’s a little complicated how they do all that statistics to figure this out and they can often get it wrong if not enough data is collected (like they did with the cucumbers!) I’ve been trying to find out as much information about this outbreak as I can because I love thinking about mysteries like this! And that’s what science is really, trying to figure out mysteries!

      Cat

    • Photo: Darren Braddick

      Darren Braddick answered on 13 Jun 2011:

      Hi Dan, Matthew, & Charlotte,

      I personally do not work with anything from this outbreak, as it is too new. I do know, however, that E. coli can be very nasty and hard to treat. The bacteria I study are very very dangerous, but when they are not resistant to antibiotics, are easy to kill. E. coli is harder to kill, because of its cellular structure.

      This new E. coli is really nasty. Maybe the most frustrating thing for us in the UK is the amount of time it is taking for them to find out what happened and where its coming from.

      I do microbiology with E. coli though, generally, but not this bad one 🙂

      Hope that helps,

      Daz

Comments

  • Photo: danrumford

    danrumford commented on :

    Thanks for answering my question!

    • Photo: Holly

      Holly commented on :

      Hi Dan

      There are many reasons to work with E.coli although I guess your interest is sparked by the outbreak in Germany that has been in the news. Many non-harmful strains are used routinely in the lab as bacteria are really useful scientific tools. For example they reproduce really fast so we quite often use them to grow large amounts of proteins or DNA (whatever we need to do our work). You can introduce foreign DNA in to bacteria and then the bacteria passes that DNA on when it divides (or reproduces). If I want to make a gene I put my DNA into the bacteria and grow if for up to 16 hours at a toasty temperature the bacteria like then we break open the bacteia and we have 1000s times more DNA.

      Keep the questions coming

      Holly

      • Photo: danrumford

        danrumford commented on :

        Are non harmful strains of bacteria useful in the lab for any other purposes?

        • Photo: Johnson

          Johnson commented on :

          Yes, there are non -harmful bacteria strains in the lab, most of these bacteria strains are known strains bacteria and are used as quality control bacteria or normal flora of the body . we use them to check if tests we are carrying out on a particular sample, have similar bacteria we trying to isolated have worked (accurate). for instance, if I suspect an anaerobic bacteria (bacteria that can grow without oxgen e.g Clostridium perfringe) may be causing an infection in a patient. I will get a sample from the patient and culture (grow) it . To make sure the environment (incubator) does not contain any oxygen , I will set up another bacteria which is known to grow anaerobically (without oxygen) as a control bacteria (e.g Clostrium novyii ( non-harmful). if the control bacteria grows in that environment, then the environment under which i grew the patient sample was suitable. this will enable me confidently send a lab report as been negative (anarobic bacteria not present-no growth) or positive ( anaerobic bacteria present- growth). In the lab we call it quality control and It helps us to maintain the accuracy and reliability of the tests we perform. There are various quality control bacteria we use in the lab. However, some of these bacteria may become harmful if they found themselves in certain suitable environment they can grow and multiply well.For instance, long-term sick patient in hospital whose immune system are low ( i.e White cells that fight infections in the patient body are low or absent ) e.g cancer patients on chemotherapy and radiotherapy or people with AIDS, or elderly people or patient on heavy or long term antibiotics or open wounds or even new babys . Despite the fact, that they are non-harmful in healthy people, sick peoples may be a good enviroment to grow and multiple in large number and cause infections. We, still take precautions when handling these bacteria in the lab to ensure the public are not exposed to them by washing our hands after use and wearing lab coat while at work in the lab.

    • Photo: Daz

      Daz commented on :

      Hi Dan and Charlotte,

      Pleasure to reply! I hope our answers helped

      Daz

  • Photo: danrumford

    danrumford commented on :

    Thanks 🙂

  • Photo: charlottedavies

    charlottedavies commented on :

    thanks 😀