Microbiology and Immunology

In this article, about a sociologist's predictions for the future, I found this claim: Now, given that tuberculosis is a bacterial disease, I'm not sure how this is supposed to work. But maybe a non-sociologist like me can't understand these things.

Hi all This is an important part of a microbiologist role - to keep up to date with new techniques and discuss problems we have and learn how others work to see pros and cons. This seems like a good forum to begin discussions. Anyone interested??

Hello SFN, I am stumped on this question: Can gelatin hydrolysis be important to microorganisms even if they are not pathogenic? Explain. Where in nature might you find such microbes? I understand that gelatin hydrolysis is progressed via enzyme gelatinase. But outside of human or animal, I don't see any other functions of hydrolysizing gelatin or the function of gelatinase in a natural environment. I went into further exploration and found that some microbes that posses the gene for gelatinase live in fresh water or soil environments. Gelatin is found within these environments? Is that the simple answer? Thanks in advance for the responses.

Is there an immunohistochemistry antibody to assess monoclonality? For example antibodies to assess G6PD isoenzymes to see wether the cells I look at the microscope are monoclonal or policlonal. Please let me know.

I observed that in case of treatment patient with betalactam antibiotics (e.g. penicillin, amoxicillin etc.) infection caused by bacteria resistant to them, the given antibiotic usually is not present in patient’s urine (usually 70-80% of the given antibiotic dose is eliminated by kidneys). I think that it may be caused by the mechanism of resistance to betalactam antibiotic, which rely on the production of betalactamases, which destroys given antibiotic. I think that it would be possible to develop fast and cheap test (method?) for evaluation of antibiotic resistance based on the detection of the given antibiotic in urine. Antibiotics might be detected e.g. by…

I'm wondering what kind of careers are available for an immunologist in the U.K. and U.S. I'm going to start a PhD in Immunology in October, which will last for 4 years. What kind of career paths could I go down? A lot of the jobs I've seen online only pay about £15,000-£20,000 even with a PhD in Immunology. And from what I can discern, there are three major routes: academia (doing postdocs etc. at universities, maybe becoming a lecturer); health sector (working in the NHS, in a hospital lab, etc.); pharmaceutical (working for a pharm. company, doing research as part of a lab team.) My personal preference would be to work as a clinical immunologist in the U.K.…

Dear all, i need help to understand a result and will be very glad if someone could explain to me the result. the test was made in 26 pieces of bamboo coz i wanted to know how good is the bio agent bamboo kun against bacteria. I heard that it can kill off 99% of the bacterias without any treatment thanks to the natural agent bamboo kun. i got the result in logarithm data and the tester can not or is refusing to say how good is the anti bacteria in percentage. All i want to know is in percentage how was the bacteria reduction? like 80% 90%? in some cases i see 99.99%. I did the JIS Z 2801:2000 test, a japanese standard. anyway, the test is below and i h…

My colleague and I are confused as to whether you can detect a receptor expressed on a cell surface to the same degree when it's bound by its ligand. For example, when dendritic cells secrete the cytokine IL-12, expression of its receptor is up-regulated. In trying to quantify this receptor expression by antibody detection/flow cytometry, we are worried that the binding of the IL-12 ligand may jeopardise the quantification of the receptor. Does it depend of the respective binding sites of the antibody and ligand? Does ligand binding always affect the capacity of the antibody to bind? Can anybody help?!

Hi all. Does anyone know where I can find a newspaper article in Microbiology or Immunology that have factual errors or an unforgivable exaggeration of the disease or its danger?? I have read some newspaper articles that have many mistakes in them about microbiology diseases such as west nile, bird flu etc. I can't seem to find any online. Does anyone know any good newspaper articles with factual errors?

i am looking to perform my project work on the persistence mechanims of mycobacterium tuberculosis, i almost got selected in my lab abroad..but before i go there, i would like to know from all the microbiologists out there..what basic techniques i need to equip myself with for the project..and wht all reading i need to do..i already go thru scientific journals for up to date researches going on in this field..i ve one more yr before i start my master's thesis..and would like to make tht the most productive perios of my career..so hope u could help me...to all the sceintists and co-microbiologists there....thanks....

Does anybody know any immunocytochemistry protocol working fine for 8OHdG?I have two protocols but neither of them working!It is really urgent! Thanks

I want to buy a ELISA KIT to check the aquaporin2 level in the human urine sample,this product is better used widely,I don't know where can I find this ELISA KIT.Would you provide me related ELISA KIT product name and where can I buy it? Thanks in advance! Best regards, Dizh

I'm new here. wot. 1. I was wondering what would be the best way to quantify the number of NK cells in a tumor. The tumors would be in SCID mice. The problem is that the percentage of NK cells is pretty low, so when I FACS the cells, I might need to back-gate PE+ cells (the cells are stained with DX5-PE) in order to increase the resolution, and get quantifiable quantities. 2. I was also wondering if any of you guys know what the percentage of NK cells in a mouse spleen is... Specifically, in BALB/C SCID mice and in WT B6 mice, but any info would help. I did the googles, but got some conflicting results. I need this as a control for my back-gating, so if backgating…

I know this isn't a medical science question, but it's to closest to virology I could find. So, does anybody know how tobacco mosaic virus gets past the cell membrane, and what happens to the newly assembled virions. (viral RNA gets passed to other cells via the plasmodesmata, but I can't firgure out what the virions do)

This question is on behalf of a high school lab I've been donating supplies to. They don't have a -80C freezer. Is it possible to store and maintain competency in a regular -20? This is for DH5alpha cells, btw.

Hi all I've done some work with an aerobic flask culture of E. coli, and so far so good. But my supervisor has asked me to prove that the culture is definitely aerobic before I write up. The volume is 10% of the flask volume, and has been shaking the whole time for a maximum of 24 hours, so it should be fine. But he said there's a simple test I can do, similar to a viologen-type test. And I can't find out what it is! It's proving to be very difficult to do an internet search, so any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Hi everyone i am new to this forum. I was hoping to get opinion on how people test for these resistance mechanisms in the first line and then what further testing the carry out to confirm. Also what experiences do people have of them

Why is a blood agar, rather than a nutrient agar, plate used for the culture from the mouth?

Hello everyone, I know there are a lot of informations on this on the internet, but I just can't find something vulgarised. All is too complicated, or too simple (for a Grade 10 student). Ok, so I've read there are many ways bacteria can aqquire an antibiotic resistance. The most common is with the plasmids. Where do these plasmids come from in the first place? Is it a mutation? I've also read that bacteria can mutate and get a resistance that way...How does that happen? Any other ways for aqquiring an antibiotic resistance? Thanks in advance.

Hi, Why do bacteria share plasmids together? What pushes them to do that? Is it some way to multiply? Thanks in advance.

I understand the whole concept about replacing antibiotics with bacteriophage because of the increase in antibiotic resistant bacteria, but what i dont understand is how bacteriophage can be of better use in tackling bacteria resistance. First of all bacteriophage infects bacteria with its viral DNA and then makes multiple copies of the virus using the bacteria's cell replication machinery. Now my first question is this, how can a virus which infects bacteria and makes multiple copies of the infected bacteria, be more effective than antibiotics which destroys bacteria without making any copies of it? How can the effectiveness of bacteriophages against bacteria be…

An Antibiotic can kill many diffrent bacteria...How can it do that? Shouldn't it be "programmed" to attack only one sort of bacteria?

I can't believe that nobody ever thought of this before. It's not that big of a deal. After all, it is only a zebra fish. If I try real hard, I think I can make out little microscopic spiny appendages rising out of its body. Surely, making a video of a test-tube baby isn't THAT bad, right? http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/10/video-of-zebraf.html

Standard approach to fight with viruses is to use antigens which search for some specific place on the surface, but the problem is that the capsid is varying rapidly. What usually doesn't change is that the virus still targets to the same molecules on cell's surface - maybe we should try to use it. For example create empty liposome - water + phospholipid with specific molecules - for example CD4 and some chemokine receptors for HIV. Now if the virus would catch the bait, it will enter inside and loose its capsid - even if the liposome will be destroyed - it shouldn't longer be a threat or at least much smaller than it would be swimming in capsid. Eventually we coul…

I have an assigment, where I'm asked to mention 3 types of MHC typing.. I'm not completely sure what's meant by "MHC typing"?