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Category Archives: Microbiology

The microbes you inhale on the New York City subway

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Public release date: 24-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Jim Sliwa jsliwa@asmusa.org 202-942-9297 American Society for Microbiology

The microbial population in the air of the New York City subway system is nearly identical to that of ambient air on the city streets. This research, published ahead of print in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology, establishes an important baseline, should it become necessary to monitor the subway's air for dispersal of potentially dangerous microbes. Also, the combination of new methodologies in the study, including fast collection of aerosols and rapid sequencing technology, provide an efficient means for monitoring which was not previously available.

The results "are strong testimony for the efficiency of the train pumping system for ventilation," says principal investigator Norman R. Pace of the University of Colorado, Boulder. The wind one feels while walking across a subway grate as the subway clatters beneath also demonstrates just how effective that system is, he says. The only obvious differences in the subway's microbial population are the somewhat higher proportion of skin microbiota, and the doubled density of the fungal population, which Pace suggests may be due to rotting wood. "I was impressed by the similarity of [subway] and outdoor air," he says.

The researchers used a high tech mechanism to collect air at around 300 liters per minute (L/min), a big jump on the previous state of the art, which swallowed 12 L/min. That enabled collecting sufficient volume of aira couple of cubic metersto take the bacterial census within 20 minutes, instead of after "hours," says Pace. And analysis by sequencing is far faster and more thorough then using culture.

Pace notes that until now, the microbial content of subway air was unknown, and that the microbiology of indoor air is an emerging field of scientific inquiry. His research was funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, through its Microbiology of the Built Environment program, which has made 64 grants totaling $28 million to date.

"While it is difficult to predict what will be discovered on the frontier of scientific inquiry, the opportunity exists to better understand these complex microbial ecosystems and how they affect health and the environment. We expect that someday this knowledge will influence design and construction practices and other industrial processes," says Paula Olsiewski, program director, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

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A copy of the manuscript can be found online at http://bit.ly/asmtip0413c. Formal publication is scheduled for the July 2013 issue of Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

(C.E. Robertson, L.K. Baumgartner, J.K. Harris, K.L. Peterson, M.J. Stevens, D.N. Frank, and N.R. Pace, 2013. Culture-independent analysis of aerosol microbiology in a metropolitan subway system. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. Published ahead of print 29 March 2013 ,doi:10.1128/AEM.00331-13)

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The microbes you inhale on the New York City subway

Microbiology Quality Control Seminar to Assist Medical Device Manufacturers Validate Sterilization, Cleaning Processes

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A seminar on microbiology quality control designed to help medical device manufacturers validate sterilization and cleaning processes, and maintain controlled environments will be held on Thursday, May 16, in Boston.

Agawam, MA (PRWEB) April 22, 2013

For today's medical device manufacturers, the challenge is to validate their sterilization and cleaning processes to ensure patient safety and product integrity. This seminar will focus on a host of issues pertaining to the sterilization of medical devices including sterilization validation, bioburden, sterility, and endotoxin testing, as well as submitting samples to a contract testing laboratory, said Steven Richter, Ph.D., president and scientific director of Microtest Laboratories, which is hosting the event.

Topics at the Microbiology Quality Control Seminar will include:

The event will be held at the MIT Endicott House in Boston, Mass., on Thursday, May 16, 2013, from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Registration is 9 a.m. to 9:45 a.m. A networking reception and lunch are included.

To register, download the form from http://www.microtestlabs.com/pdfs/seminar-registration-form_1305.pdf. Or, contact Julie Adamski at Microtest Laboratories by phone at 1-800-631-1680, ext. 192, or by email at jadamski(at)microtestlabs(dot)com. The registration fee is $149.

The event is one in a series of technical seminars and workshops for medical device and pharmaceutical manufacturers presented by Microtest Laboratories, a Mass.-based, FDA-audited company with a history of exceptional regulatory compliance.

About Microtest Laboratories

Microtest Laboratories is a leader in testing services and contract manufacturing for the medical device, pharmaceutical, and biotechnology industries. Based in Agawam, Massachusetts, USA, the company provides expertise and flexible processes that enhance product safety and security, accelerate time to market, and minimize supply chain disruption. For more information, visit http://www.microtestlabs.com or call 1-413-786-1680 or toll-free 1-800-631-1680. Follow Microtest Laboratories on Twitter @MicrotestLabs at http://twitter.com/MicrotestLabs.

Don Goncalves Tiziani Whitmyre, Inc. 781-793-9380 Email Information

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Microbiology Quality Control Seminar to Assist Medical Device Manufacturers Validate Sterilization, Cleaning Processes

Canada’s national lab to work on H7N9 flu virus

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Helen Branswell, The Canadian Press Published Saturday, April 20, 2013 11:07AM EDT Last Updated Saturday, April 20, 2013 12:06PM EDT

TORONTO -- If all goes according to plan, a vial containing the worrisome new H7N9 virus should arrive at Canada's National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, where scientists are eager to begin work on the new pathogen.

Scientific Director Dr. Frank Plummer said China readily agreed to share a sample with the Canadian lab after Winnipeg asked for live virus with which to work. In fact, the emailed request drew a positive reply in a matter of a couple of hours.

"I was extremely pleased when I saw the response from China. All they wanted was an official letter and they were getting ready to send it to us," Plummer said in an interview.

In contrast to its secretive behaviour during the 2003 SARS outbreak, China has been openly sharing information and virus samples since the start of the outbreak of the new H7N9 flu. As of Friday, China had reported 91 confirmed infections and 17 deaths from a virus first identified less than a month ago.

All of the World Health Organization's collaborating centres and essential regulatory laboratories for influenza have had copies of the virus for more than a week. And elsewhere, key influenza researchers are also getting samples of the virus to help in the international effort to decode the mysteries of this new flu strain.

Plummer said his lab's willingness to share the H1N1 virus with China in the early days of the 2009 pandemic probably contributed to China's prompt and favourable response to Canada's request.

The national lab director said the Winnipeg facility is also growing up a synthesized version of the virus, put together from genetic sequence data that China has shared through an international databank known as GISAID. While that's both great practice and a fallback in case the Chinese sample is delayed, Plummer said having the real thing is important.

"Genome sequence is great, it allows you to do certain things. But it only gets you so far. You need the whole virus," he said, adding Canada has also asked the U.S. Centers for Disease Control for a sample of H7N9.

Earlier this week a joint assessment issued by the Public Health Agency of Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency decreed that the H7N9 virus should be worked on in laboratories with a Level 3-enhanced biosafety and biosecurity designation. But Plummer said NML scientists are probably going to work with it in a laboratory with an even higher designation in some cases.

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Canada's national lab to work on H7N9 flu virus

Canada’s national lab to work on H7N9 flu virus; sample likely arrives next week

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TORONTO - If all goes according to plan, a vial containing the worrisome new H7N9 virus should arrive at Canada's National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, where scientists are eager to begin work on the new pathogen.

Scientific Director Dr. Frank Plummer said China readily agreed to share a sample with the Canadian lab after Winnipeg asked for live virus with which to work. In fact, the emailed request drew a positive reply in a matter of a couple of hours.

"I was extremely pleased when I saw the response from China. All they wanted was an official letter and they were getting ready to send it to us," Plummer said in an interview.

In contrast to its secretive behaviour during the 2003 SARS outbreak, China has been openly sharing information and virus samples since the start of the outbreak of the new H7N9 flu. As of Friday, China had reported 91 confirmed infections and 17 deaths from a virus first identified less than a month ago.

All of the World Health Organization's collaborating centres and essential regulatory laboratories for influenza have had copies of the virus for more than a week. And elsewhere, key influenza researchers are also getting samples of the virus to help in the international effort to decode the mysteries of this new flu strain.

Plummer said his lab's willingness to share the H1N1 virus with China in the early days of the 2009 pandemic probably contributed to China's prompt and favourable response to Canada's request.

The national lab director said the Winnipeg facility is also growing up a synthesized version of the virus, put together from genetic sequence data that China has shared through an international databank known as GISAID. While that's both great practice and a fallback in case the Chinese sample is delayed, Plummer said having the real thing is important.

"Genome sequence is great, it allows you to do certain things. But it only gets you so far. You need the whole virus," he said, adding Canada has also asked the U.S. Centers for Disease Control for a sample of H7N9.

Earlier this week a joint assessment issued by the Public Health Agency of Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency decreed that the H7N9 virus should be worked on in laboratories with a Level 3-enhanced biosafety and biosecurity designation. But Plummer said NML scientists are probably going to work with it in a laboratory with an even higher designation in some cases.

Level 4 laboratories are equipped to the highest degree of biosafety and biosecurity; between Levels 4 and 3 is Level 3-enhanced, which is sometimes called Level 3 Ag (short for agriculture). Plummer said Level 3-enhanced is basically Level 4, without the spacesuit type gear worn in Level 4.

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Canada's national lab to work on H7N9 flu virus; sample likely arrives next week

Circumcision alters penis microbiome, could explain HIV protection

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Public release date: 16-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Jim Sliwa jsliwa@asmusa.org 202-942-9297 American Society for Microbiology

Circumcision drastically alters the microbiome of the penis, changes that could explain why circumcision offers protection against HIV and other viral infections. In a study to be published on April 16 in mBio, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology, researchers studied the effects of adult male circumcision on the types of bacteria that live under the foreskin before and after circumcision. By one year post-procedure, the total bacterial load in that area had dropped significantly and the prevalence of anaerobic bacteria, which thrive in locations with limited oxygen, declined while the numbers of some aerobic bacteria increased slightly.

"The change in the communities is really characterized by the loss of anaerobes. It's dramatic," says the corresponding author, Lance Price of the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) in Flagstaff, Arizona and George Washington University in Washington, DC. "From an ecological perspective, it's like rolling back a rock and seeing the ecosystem change. You remove the foreskin and you're increasing the amount of oxygen, decreasing the moisture - we're changing the ecosystem," he continues.

Randomized controlled trials show that circumcision reduces the risk of HIV infection in men by 50-60% and reduces the risk of infection with human papillomavirus and herpes simplex virus type 2, but the biology behind these benefits is not well understood. It could be that the anatomy of the circumcised penis helps prevent infection, or it could be that changes in the microbiome confer protection, or some combination of the two.

Using swab samples from a large circumcision trial in Uganda, Price and his colleagues at Johns Hopkins and TGen set out to determine whether circumcision significantly alters the penis microbial community. Using a quantitative technique called qPCR along with pyrosequencing to identify individual community members, the researchers compared samples from uncircumcised men with samples from circumcised men that were taken both before the procedure and one year later.

"There was a dramatic and significant change in the penis microbiome as a result of male circumcision," says Price. At the beginning, the microbiota of both groups of men were comparable. One year after their operation the bacterial load in all men had declined somewhat, but in circumcised men the decline was significantly greater than in the uncircumcised controls. And nearly all the bacterial groups that declined were strict anaerobes or facultative anaerobes. Overall, these changes amount to a reduced biodiversity in the microbiota.

"From a public health perspective the findings are really interesting because some of these organisms that are decreasing could cause inflammation," says Price. "We're used to thinking about how disrupting the gut microbiome can make someone more susceptible to an infection. Now we think maybe this disturbance [in the penile microbiome] could be a good thing - could have a positive effect," says Price.

Just what role the penile microbiome might play in HIV acquisition is not yet known, but studies suggest that genital bacteria may affect how susceptible the penis is to sexually transmitted viral infections. In uncircumcised men, high bacterial loads may activate cells in the foreskin called Langerhans cells, preventing them from carrying out their normal role in fending off viruses. Instead, these activated Langerhans cells betray the body, binding and delivering HIV particles right to T-cells, where they can initiate an infection. Cutting back on the numbers of bacteria on the penis could, conceivable, prevent these Langerhans cells from becoming turncoats.

To follow up on this work, Price says he and his colleagues plan to address the question of whether the penile microbiome affects HIV transmission by studying possible links between changes in the microbiome and cytokine responses, signaling mechanisms that can activate the immune system.

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Circumcision alters penis microbiome, could explain HIV protection

Crispin Philpott Joins QC Laboratories as Director of Business Development & Sales – Life Sciences Division

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SOUTHAMPTON, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

QC Laboratories (QCL), a leader in providing microbiology and analytical chemistry services to the food, pharmaceutical and dairy industries is pleased to announce that Crispin Philpot has joined the organization as Director of Business Development & Sales of the Life Sciences Division. The addition of Mr. Philpott will enable QCL to focus sales and marketing activities for Life Sciences and establish the strategic direction for the growth of the division.

Crispin has over 25 years of leadership experience in the sales and marketing of Quality Assurance and Food Safety diagnostic solutions to the global food industry, and has held senior staff positions focusing on sales, marketing and strategic development in several major organizations. He brings a deep knowledge of Food Safety and Quality challenges and regulatory requirements to the Company. Crispin is a past Committee Chair within the International Association for Food Protection (IAFP), member of the Beef Industry Food Safety Council (BIFSCO), a contributor to Food Safety magazine and former consultant on emerging diagnostic technologies within embryonic companies.

David Speis, Chief Executive Officer of QCL said, The addition of Crispin Philpott will be a tremendous boost to QCLs Life Sciences business development and sales efforts. I am extremely pleased to bring a seasoned professional of Crispins caliber into the organization.

About QC Laboratories. QCL has provided analytical services to environmental, food, pharmaceutical and dairy clients in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Delaware and Maryland since its establishment in 1943. The company currently employs over 200 professional scientists and support personnel and operates eight facilities in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware. Life Sciences operations are conducted from a state-of-the-art 25,000 square foot facility in Horsham, Pennsylvania. Environmental analysis is conducted from a 35,000 square foot facility in Southampton, Pennsylvania. The Company also operates satellite facilities in Wind Gap and Reading, Pennsylvania; Vineland and East Rutherford, New Jersey and a limited services environmental laboratory in New Castle, Delaware.

For further information please contact Bill Coer, Chief Financial Officer for QCL at 215.355.3900 ex 4304 or wcoer@qclaboratories.com or visit us at http://www.qclaboratories.com.

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Crispin Philpott Joins QC Laboratories as Director of Business Development & Sales - Life Sciences Division

CML HealthCare Inc. to Install North America’s First and World’s Largest Fully Automated BD Kiestra™ Microbiology …

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MISSISSAUGA, Ontario, April 8, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --CML HealthCare Inc. (CLC.TO) (the "Company" or "CML"), a leading community-based provider of laboratory and medical imaging services in Ontario and British Columbia, and BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company) (BDX), a leading global medical technology company, today announced an agreement for CML to install two BD Kiestra Total Laboratory Automation ("TLA") systems. This fully automated microbiology system will be installed at CML's central laboratory by the third quarter of 2013. The BD Kiestra TLA system is designed to significantly increase overall microbiology lab productivity, streamline workflow, and shorten the time to results.

"We are very excited to be the first laboratory services provider in North America to be installing the BD Kiestra TLA system. With our central laboratory processing approximately three million microbiology tests annually, this installation will be the largest in the world for the BD Kiestra TLA system," said Thomas Wellner, President and CEO of CML. "The implementation of the BD Kiestra TLA system will allow CML to increase our capacity, reduce result turnaround times, and contribute to the growth of our core laboratory business. It will provide us with a significant competitive advantage and support a key pillar of our growth strategy which is to establish innovative hospital and other partnerships."

BD Kiestra TLA system automates the manual processes associated with inoculating and incubating microbiology specimens, and uses digital imaging of the inoculated specimens to shorten the time to detect bacterial growth. The increased efficiency, and quality improvements associated with automation allow for faster delivery of more accurate results to provide optimal patient care. In addition, laboratory staff is able to devote more time to analytical and value-added tasks.

"BD is proud to be working with CML HealthCare Inc., one of Canada's largest and most forward-looking laboratory services providers," said Tom Polen, President, BD Diagnostics - Diagnostic Systems. "Rapid diagnosis and treatment of infections is critical; however, many of the traditional testing protocols take two or three days to generate an actionable result.Using the BD Kiestra TLA system, integrated with other rapid diagnostic technologies, CMLwill be a pioneer in implementing technology that can often reduce those times significantly. We expect this to enable clinicians to provide patients with the most effective treatment earlier thus improving the standard of care and avoiding unnecessary healthcare costs."

The BD Kiestra TLA system currently has an installation base of instruments at public hospitals, universities, and privately owned laboratories in more than eleven countries worldwide since its introduction in 2006.

About CML HealthCare Inc.

Based in Mississauga, Ontario, CML HealthCare Inc. is a leading community-based, medical diagnostic services provider in Canada operating 114 Client C.A.R.E. Centres in Ontario, 84 imaging centres in Ontario and British Columbia, and a reference laboratory in Ontario focused on specialized coagulation testing and equipment calibration for international customers. CML is publicly-traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol "CLC" and has approximately 89.8 million common shares outstanding. For more information, please visit http://www.cmlhealthcare.com or follow CML on Twitter @cmlhealthcare.

About BD

BD is a leading global medical technology company that develops, manufactures and sells medical devices, instrument systems and reagents. The Company is dedicated to improving people's health throughout the world. BD is focused on improving drug delivery, enhancing the quality and speed of diagnosing infectious diseases and cancers, and advancing research, discovery and production of new drugs and vaccines. BD's capabilities are instrumental in combating many of the world's most pressing diseases. Founded in 1897 and headquartered in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey, BD employs nearly 30,000 associates in more than 50 countries throughout the world. The Company serves healthcare institutions, life science researchers, clinical laboratories, the pharmaceutical industry and the general public. For more information, please visit http://www.bd.com.

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CML HealthCare Inc. to Install North America's First and World's Largest Fully Automated BD Kiestra™ Microbiology ...


  1. Microbiology