Mitchell told us about how he ended up working in pathology and what he enjoys about his job.

What attracted you to pathology and what made you decide to specialise in microbiology?

I always had a keen interest in nature as a child and that led me into science at school. From there it was a gradual progression from biology and basic sciences in high school to my first degree, a BSc in Biomedical sciences. I worked as a zookeeper while I was studying, and did have some early exposure to microbiology and infectious diseases there, particularly when I needed to help vets give antibiotics to sick animals. The kangaroos and wallabies were sometimes affected by a bacterial infection known as ‘lumpy jaw’ which is one of the things that got me interested in microbiology.

What does a typical day involve?

My lab is a core microbiology lab. We operate on a 24/7 basis, every day of the year. I must say I don’t really have a typical day. I could be reading plates at 2am, or visiting one of our partner labs in regional NSW, or perhaps spending a day in the office catching up on admin.

What are the most common conditions that you deal with?

It would have to be Staphylococcus aureus infections. People often refer to it as golden staph. I’m also doing my PhD on the bug so it takes up a big part of my day! It causes a wide variety of skin and soft tissue infections as well as blood stream infections, and infections in other normally sterile sites.

What is the rarest or most unusual condition you have come across?

I was involved in the diagnosis of a case of tularaemia* from someone bitten by a possum in Tasmania.  It was the first case in the Southern Hemisphere. It’s a dangerous bug that has to be handled really carefully in the laboratory.  That was really enjoyable to work on, and we also got into the Readers Digest in a focus article about the case.  They even interviewed the patient.

Do your family and friends understand what you do?

I think they mostly have only a vague understanding of what I do. Some of my family and friends are quite intrigued by it though. It can be hard to explain the finer points of what I do to non-microbiologists, but I do try from time to time.

I think the general public think pathology is all about blood tests that look at chemistry, and perhaps people are familiar with looking at biopsies in anatomical pathology to detect cancer. We are always thinking about how we could do a better job of letting them know what we are all about in microbiology.

Mitchell also took part in a laboratory tour with Chris Bowen MP earlier this year:

What do you like most about your job?

As well as working with a great team of scientists at Westmead, I really like the interaction with rural labs as part of my role is supporting microbiology testing in our more remote locations. We are using some cool technology now that means we can read plates on a computer screen instead of holding the plate in our hands. This is a great tool for consulting with labs in more remote areas as you can look at the same plate as an image on the screen and discuss it in real time over the phone or online. Before we started using this technology some samples would need to be sent from a rural location to our lab, and rural staff were no longer involved in the testing process. Now they can be, and we can get results back to clinicians and patients faster.

Has anyone particularly inspired you in your current role or future career plans?

I’ve worked with a lot of great scientists and doctors in my 18 years in microbiology.  Many have encouraged or inspired me in different ways. I’ve also had a lot of exposure to scientists and academics from outside my normal sphere through my involvement in the Australian Society for Microbiology.

What’s it like working in the lab over Christmas?

Christmas can seem like it’s a quieter time, however it can actually be quite hectic as people still get sick and need pathology. The hospital operates 24/7 and therefore so does pathology.

* Tularaemia is a rare infection caused by the bacteria Francisella tularensis. It is a zoonotic disease meaning it can be passed from animals to humans. Symptoms vary depending on where the disease enters the body. The eyes, mouth, lungs and skin can be affected in different ways and symptoms can also include vomiting, diarrhoea and exhaustion. It can be serious if left undiagnosed but treatment with antibiotics is usually successful, particularly when the bacteria is detected early.

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Developed in 1884, Gram staining is a staining technique that aids in the identification and characterization of bacteria.

Gram was a Danish physician and bacteriologist who intended to make bacteria more visible in stained sections of lung tissue, and in turn, developed the most widely used method of staining bacterial cells.

“After so many years, we still use Gram staining in labs,” says Dr Petra Derrington, a Queensland based microbiologist.

“Currently all microbiology labs still use Gram stains to give us the initial information about what organism is present in a specimen.

“Therefore, we are able to determine the empiric therapy needed for that patient.”

However, there have been changes to the method since the late-1800’s with the advancements of technology and quality.

“Today there are automated Gram stains done in the lab, which ensures better quality and better reproducibility.”

Microbiologists working in labs today use Gram stains to test patients for the presence of bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli.

Fast diagnosis or ruling out of bacterial infections ensures the correct treatment is provided quickly. This not only helps the patient to recover faster but also aids in the fight against antibiotic resistance by limiting the use of unnecessary antibiotics.

To learn more about what a microbiologist does, check out or profile of Dr Petra Derrington here.

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In the Middle Ages most people never travelled more than ten miles from their place of birth. For the last 1,000 years, most people have lived sedentary lives amongst familiar flora, fauna and weather patterns. And that has meant a certain predictability and acclimatisation to infectious diseases specific to those locales.

The diseases bought by European settlers to the lands of the Americas and Australia – such as typhus, influenza, smallpox, measles – proved devastating to the indigenous populations who had not had contact with such diseases or built up a store of antibodies to combat them.

Fast forward to today and humans not only travel a lot further than they did in Medieval times, they also have to contend with a rapidly changing climate and environment.

Melting permafrost, El Niño events, changing precipitation patterns, elongating and shortening seasons, the tropicalisation of arid zones, diminished air quality, water quality, and severe eco-system disruption – are combining to create a potentially serious problem in the world of infectious disease.

In 2016, 20 people died of anthrax contracted from a 75 year-old reindeer after Siberian permafrost melted. In the late 1990s the deforestation of Peruvian rainforest led to the outbreak of 120,000 cases of malaria – malaria increases significantly after El Niño events says the World Health Organization.

And through the changing habitats and intermingling of bat species, bought on by changes to natural terrain and weather patterns, viruses like Ebola, SARS, and Nipah virus pose a significant threat to humans.

Leading Australian microbiologist, Dr Petra Derrington, explains some of the reasons why new and old infectious diseases are spreading, how they’re exacerbated by climate conditions, and what the pathology profession is doing to help combat its spread.

‘Whether it’s the bubonic plague, tuberculosis, or dengue fever, these infectious diseases can be passed directly between humans, directly from animals to humans, or via vector-borne agents – such as mosquitoes – that carry the infection between humans or from animals to humans. There are also water-borne diseases.’

‘The issue with environmental change is that everything is thrown into chaos when, for example, bats that would largely inhabit the northern hemisphere now come into contact with those from the south due to climatic change and destruction of habitat.

‘It’s a concerning situation,’ says Dr Derrington.

With four health emergencies declared by the World Health Organization since 2007 (swine flu, polio, Ebola and the Zika virus) the risks are real. The Aedes mosquito, which carries Zika, dengue fever and chikungunya, is spreading further as warm and moist environments spread.

So what happens if an outbreak occurs in Australia and how do pathologists detect, track and keep ahead of the wave?

Diagnostic testing in the context of an outbreak is important not only in determining who has the infection and ensuring they get the appropriate treatment, but also to rule out infection in patients who present with similar symptoms, so that resources can be deployed appropriately.

‘In the case of the 2009 swine flu pandemic, we were fortunate that routine tests were able to detect the infection, while we also had a large amount of global influenza data that allowed for the rapid development of a test to detect that particular strain,’ says Dr Derrington.

‘Contrast that with the Lassa Fever outbreak in Nigeria earlier this year. While we have a test available should a traveller return with a suspected case, the lack of research data means we can’t be sure that we can detect every strain of infection.

‘These kinds of situations highlight the importance of global collaboration for disease preparedness. It’s also important to note that we would not be able to manage outbreaks effectively without the assistance of our public health colleagues, who track the movements of these diseases through the community and help us find cases.’

Outbreaks of infection can be frightening, but there are ways for everyone to be prepared.

Dr Derrington recommends keeping up to date with travel recommendations through resources like smarttraveller.gov.au, and being sure to visit a travel medicine specialist before travelling overseas.

‘These doctors and nurses are specially trained to ensure you have up to date vaccinations and other appropriate preventative measures to keep you happy and healthy while travelling.’

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In a globalised world, where people are continually moving between countries, the prospect of serious health conditions spreading through Australia and the Asia Pacific region is a serious and ongoing concern, as evidenced by outbreaks of influenza in the region in recent decades.

The threat was serious enough to spur the national government to spend $194 million between 2006 and 2015 in the Asia Pacific on preventing the spread of emerging infectious diseases (IEDs) like bird flu, swine flu and rabies.

On September 1 the Victorian government instituted changes to its infectious conditions’ strategy. Under the new changes, a medical practitioner who reasonably suspects someone of carrying an ‘urgent’ condition must notify the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) immediately by phone after initial diagnosis or based on clinical suspicion.

Urgent conditions include anthrax, plague, poliovirus, yellow fever, typhoid, meningitis and SARS – Instead of four reporting groups there are now two, ‘urgent’ and ‘routine’. Ten of the conditions that medical practitioners are no longer required to notify the department of health on include: Ross River virus infection, influenza, and hepatitis viral.

The thin red line

That’s not to suggest those conditions are forgotten about. The back-stop and fail-safe is Victoria’s pathology services that will continue to notify the department of conditions identified through test results in the lab.

Pathology services must notify the requesting clinician and DHHS of urgent conditions – as well as legionellosis, listeriosis, Hepatitis A, and measles – by phone.

Pathology plays a critical role in identifying emerging infectious disease trends and threats. Many infections present with similar symptoms; therefore, pathology testing is required for establishing the correct diagnosis. The public health interventions of vaccination, drug therapy and patient isolation cannot occur until an accurate patient diagnosis has been obtained

With diseases and conditions capable of moving much faster than government process, it is vital that the government rely on Victoria’s pathology services to notice developing issues and trends.

What you do not want is to encounter is a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). The Ebola virus is an example of a PHEIC, and in 2007 the Zika virus was identified in the Pacific and declared a PHEIC in 2015.

A/Professor Rob Baird, a national microbiology expert, explains how pathology helps keep people safe in normal times and what pathologists would do in – and to identify – emergency situations:

‘While all medical practitioners rightly look at symptoms of infectious diseases, microbiology diagnostic testing is critical to confirming and identifying any suspected condition in the lab,’ says Prof Baird.

‘We deal with urgent conditions all the time: for example, meningococcal disease remains in the community, measles is highly contagious (and imported), tuberculosis which now can be significantly antibiotic resistant remains a threat, and returned travellers can bring Hepatitis A, antibiotic resistant gonorrhoea, and typhoid all back from their journeys.

‘These conditions all require rapid laboratory confirmation and as soon as results indicate these conditions, DHHS is informed, as is the clinician looking after the patient to ensure an adequate public health response, and patient management occurs.’

There are over 30 infectious diseases on the urgent notification list, and laboratories have made significant investments in rapid diagnostic testing equipment to ensure accuracy and speedy turnaround time of results.

Recent influenza outbreaks have tested the systems, and national quality control is in place in all accredited laboratories, but most importantly, it is the presence of trained scientific and medical staff in these labs, which provides the vital “thin red line” protecting Australians’ health.

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What is CARAlert and why do we need it?

CARAlert stands for Critical Antimicrobial Resistance Alert; a national initiative involving 73 pathology laboratories across Australia, to report the detection of bacteria resistant to last-line antibiotics.

CARAlert is the first nationally coordinated system for communicating data on confirmed cases of dangerous resistant bacteria (CARs) and potential CAR outbreaks as close as possible to the time of confirmation.

Antimicrobial resistance is one of the biggest threats to human health the world is facing over the next decade. Having as much information as possible about resistant bacteria helps to guide scientists and policy-makers in combating antibiotic resistance in Australia.

This national effort provides timely advice to state and territory health authorities on the occurrence of CARs in their hospitals and nationally.

What is being reported?

The data reported does not identify individual patients but does capture if the patient was in the community or admitted to the hospital at the time of testing.

Pathology teams report on bacteria known to be resistant to last-line antibiotics, these are:

What has been found so far?

The CARAlert system has been operating since March 2016. During the first 12 months 1,064 CARs were entered into the database[1], an average of 86 entries per month.

Between March 2016 and November 2016, the most common bacteria reported was Carbapenemase-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CPE), either alone or in combination with ribosomal methyltransferases (RMT). From December 2016, azithromycin non-susceptible Neisseria gonorrhoeae were most frequently reported, and in March 2017 contributed to 62% of all CARs reported.

What does this mean for patients?

The CPE superbug is of concern and requires rigorous infection control measures within health and care settings, including medical facilities and aged care homes where some bugs have been found to flourish[2].

Community awareness is also vital regarding the large number of antibiotic-resistant Neisseria gonorrhoeae cases. As these bacteria are sexually transmitted, the spread can be limited by safe sexual practices. Potential complications related to untreated gonorrhoea infection include Pelvic Inflammatory Disease in women and rarely the development of meningitis.

A/Prof Rob Baird is a microbiologist and an ambassador for Pathology Awareness Australia, he said; “The CARAlert system is an excellent way to track resistant bacteria in close to real time around the country. Over time the data will show any seasonal or geographical trends and right now it allows health services to act quickly on infection control.”

[1] https://www.safetyandquality.gov.au/antimicrobial-use-and-resistance-in-australia/what-is-aura/national-alert-system-for-critical-antimicrobial-resistances-caralert/

[2] http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-19/superbug-report-reveals-rise-in-antibiotic-resistance-gonorrhoea/8720598

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The bug in question was Burkholderia cepacia, a type of bacteria that is usually found in soil, water or other liquids. It is not commonly found in blood samples sent to pathology labs but in this case, it had been found in patient blood samples. ¹

The patients in question were in the hospital’s intensive care unit (ICU) and were quite unwell. It was suspected that they had contracted an infection in the ICU, which is why the blood samples were sent for bacterial culture.

However, the characteristics of the B. cepacia organism and the fact that both patients were getting better on antibiotics that wouldn’t have usually treated this organism led to a suspicion that the blood samples had somehow been contaminated.

This is a rare occurrence in pathology labs and an investigation swiftly commenced to find the source of contamination, beginning with testing equipment and materials in the laboratory environment.

Dr Maloney returned from leave and was surprised to discover that despite extensive testing the cause had not been found but several more cases of B. cepacia in blood had arisen.

Professor Ramon Shaban is Clinical Chair in the Department of Infection Control at Gold Coast Health and says staff were working hard to find the cause.

“This is an environmental, water-based organism, so it’s unusual to see it as a bacteraemia (bacteria in the blood). We tested IV fluids and non-sterile gels that have been associated with outbreaks around the world, and were working our way through products to find the cause. We also contacted our peers and soon learned that other cases had been identified across Queensland and interstate, which supported our working hypothesis that this was a point source outbreak.”

A point source outbreak is where patients are exposed to a single source of the bacteria in a brief time period and there is no spread from person to person.

The search intensified and widened, and the culprit was quickly identified, Dr Maloney said:

“Ramon and I went to see a doctor who had been treating one of the patients and put in a central line the day before, when a blood sample was also taken. We asked the doctor to show us what equipment he used and where he had got it. We collected all these items including the ultrasound gel and took everything back to the lab to be tested. The next day I was surprised when Brian Gorman, a senior scientist let me know that we had a suspicious organism growing from the ultrasound gel that was labelled ‘sterile’. This was the gel that was used during ultrasound guided cannulation, and the suspicious organism turned out to be Burkholderia cepacia.”

A central line is a catheter inserted into the vein of a patient needing supply of medication or fluids over an extended period. The process is called cannulation and when ultrasound imaging guides the process a gel is used.

The fact that this product, which was supposed to be sterile but was not, was manufactured internationally was a serious concern to the team, who immediately issued a formal alert to other hospitals across the country.

In-depth microbiological testing was able to establish that the patients from GCUH and the other cases were all affected by the same bacteria and that the ultrasound gel was the common cause.

The Gold Coast Health team notified the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA). Approximately 1400 kits containing the gel had been distributed to a dozen hospitals across Australia and within 36 hours the TGA had issued a recall for all these kits.

Ultimately, at least 12 patients tested positive for the bacteria but only one person had symptoms that were directly attributed to B. capacia and they have since recovered.

Dr Maloney said; “In cases like these the doctor is sending a blood sample to pathology because their patient is ill and they need to know why. With an unusual organism like this it is less clear if that is what is causing the illness, so you need to use all the pathology results as well as any other investigations that might be relevant such as diagnostic imaging, to build a full picture of what could be causing symptoms to ensure the patient gets the right treatment.”

Prof Shaban noted that the process was challenging with an unusual bug affecting a range of patients:

“The patients had few common clinical characteristics, which made it more difficult to track down the cause of the infection.”

The fast and systematic approach of the team at Gold Coast Health may well have saved lives. Bacteraemia (bacteria in the blood) is a serious condition and can be life-threatening. Had the contaminated gel not been recalled many more patients would have been affected.

Reference

1. Shaban RZ, Maloney S, Gerrard J, Collignon P, Macbeth D, Cruickshank M, Hume A, Jennison AV, Graham RMA, Bergh H, Wilson HL, Derrington P. (2017). Outbreak of healthcare-associated Burkholderia cenocepacia bacteraemia and infection attributed to contaminated ‘sterile’ gel used for central line insertion under ultrasound guidance and other procedures.  American Journal of Infection Control, Accepted 24 June, 2017.

The post A race against the clock for infection detectives in Queensland first appeared on Know Pathology Know Healthcare.

Now in its third year, the American Society for Microbiology’s Agar Art contest attracts a staggering array of entries that just keep getting better. This year’s winner was New York scientist Jasmine Temple, who used yeast to ‘paint’ a watery sunset. Jasmine and her team spent a serious amount of time sourcing and even genetically manipulating yeast to produce the colours needed. Some of the yeast they used contained colour-producing genes scavenged from sea anemones and jellyfish.

Here are just a few of the stunning agar artworks. You can see the full collection and read some fascinating stories about how each was created at the Society’s Facebook page.

             Winner – Sunset at the End                                                                           Dye of the Tiger

                             Finding Pneumo                                                      Trump (c’mon, you knew he’d be in there somewhere)

The post Breaking the mould with Agar Art first appeared on Know Pathology Know Healthcare.

If you have a similar Medical Mystery in which pathology plays a similar role, email us at info@knowpathology.com.au

Background

By the time Patient X attended Dr. Hogan’s office, it had been three months since she had felt like herself. Previously completely healthy, the 25-year-old woman had been plagued by shaking chills, fevers, and unremitting fatigue, barely able to drag herself to work. Most troubling, though, was the thin yellow fluid draining from her thighs and the undersides of her breasts.

Patient X’s symptoms had started a little over two weeks after she underwent an operation in the Dominican Republic. The cosmetic surgery – known colloquially as a Brazilian butt lift – had entailed sucking fat out of the belly and low back, then injecting it into the buttocks and thighs. She also underwent breast augmentation.

The clinic had looked pristine. She received a weeklong course of antibiotics after the operation, and the surgical wounds seemed to be healing well. As instructed by the doctor, she kept the incisions clean, and didn’t swim or use hot tubs.

Just a few days after she returned home to Boston, she started draining the fluid from her breasts and thighs.

“My first day back at work, I noticed my shirt felt wet,” Patient X said in an interview with STAT. “I looked in my bra and saw this thin liquid.” Some days, the towels she stuffed into her bra to absorb the fluid became soaked within an hour or two.

Around this same time, Patient X noted large bruises on her legs; these became red and excruciatingly painful, sometimes opening up at night and releasing the same thin fluid.

She’d become extremely fatigued — falling asleep at 5 p.m. some days — and was spiking fevers. She was also losing weight without trying to.

Patient X went to see her General Practitioner, who took samples of this draining fluid and prescribed antibiotics. Over the next few months, the samples would show just a sprinkling of the types of bacteria that normally live on the skin, such as Staphylococcus aureus. Doctors prescribed Patient X various types of antibiotic pills, and although her symptoms sometimes improved temporarily, they always returned.

Alarmingly, the silicone breast implants also eroded through her skin about a month after her surgery; they were visible through the incision. The implants were removed at a hospital; the surgeon told Patient X he thought they might be infected. Although the wounds were rinsed with an antibiotic called cefazolin, no samples were sent for microbiological studies.

Putting it all together

By August 2016, Patient X was fed up. She was then seen by Hogan, a fellow in infectious diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital.

On exam, Hogan noted that the opening in the fold beneath her left breast was draining something that was thinner than pus, but was nevertheless indicative of infection. He was alarmed at the way the infection had bored holes through Patient X’s flesh.

“She had multiple draining ulcers separate from the surgical sites,” said Hogan, who has followed Patient X closely ever since that first appointment. “It looked like a deep infection from within the soft tissue” making its way to the skin, he said.

Full blood count showed slightly high white blood cell and platelet counts, both of which can be high when there’s an infection or inflammation. Her kidney and liver tests were normal. Looking over Patient X’s imaging, Hogan noticed what looked like areas of infection in the parts of her breasts seen in a CT scan of her chest. Hogan thought it might show some smudges indicating a collection of infected fluid.

Hogan felt confident Patient X was infected from the surgery. He ruled out other possible sources of infection: Patient X had no pets. She was not a drug user and never had been. She hadn’t travelled out of the country other than her recent trip for the cosmetic surgery.

The question was which microbe was causing the infection, and why the previous treatments hadn’t gotten rid of it.

Something didn’t quite fit

Patient X’s General Practitioner might have treated her with the wrong antibiotics, or for too short a time, for a commonplace bacterial infection. There also might be a walled-off collection of pus inside of her body that the antibiotics couldn’t reach. Yet if that were the case, the samples collected from the wounds should have grown a lot more bacteria; a mix of a few bugs commonly found on the skin wasn’t exactly a slam-dunk for an infection that just wouldn’t quit.

The other possibility, he thought, was an infection different from the usual ones after surgery in the United States. As opposed to fast-moving staph and strep infections, for example, bacteria in the mycobacterial family could cause chronic, draining infections.

At the forefront of his mind were Mycobacterium fortuitum, Mycobacterium chelonae, and Mycobacterium abscessus, which can cause infections of the skin and underlying tissue and are cousins to Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which causes tuberculosis. M. abscessus can cause lung infections, and more rarely meningitis or infections in the brain. Special material is needed to grow mycobacterial species, so it wouldn’t be surprising that previous pathology tests hadn’t revealed these bacteria.

Hogan sent samples of the fluid from her legs and chest for analysis for fungi, mycobacteria, and nocardia, another rare cause of chronic bacterial infections. He also ordered breast and thigh ultrasounds to look for the hidden pockets of infection possibly seen on the CT scan. Finally, he switched Patient X’s antibiotic to better treat staph on the off-chance that this was the cause of her symptoms.

At last, a diagnosis

Hogan and Dr. Raj Gandhi, his more senior colleague on the case, were not surprised when the cultures revealed Mycobacterium abscessus. The defining characteristics of the case — from the chronicity, to the sites and nature of fluid drainage, to the preceding surgery, to the recalcitrance of the infection to many antibiotics — pointed to an infection by this bug.

“It really was classic for mycobacterial disease,” Hogan said.

The tempo of the infection — never disappearing, but never ramping up to the extent that Patient X developed a life-threatening systemic infection — was also typical. If the staph isolated from her wounds had been causing the infection, for example, Patient X likely would have become much sicker, much more quickly — progressing over days, instead of lingering for months. The staph bacteria in her samples were innocent bystanders, not the root of her infection.

Another clue pointing to M. abscessus was the way more and more wounds kept popping up; run-of-the-mill postoperative infections tend to solely entail the area where the surgery was originally performed.

For Patient X, getting a diagnosis after months of searching felt like a breakthrough.

“I was relieved, because at least I had an answer,” she said.

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Western Australian scientists have mapped the 3-dimensional molecular structure of a protein called EptA which bacteria use to hide from the human immune system and antibiotics. The Scientists believe the discovery will enable the development of new drugs that are more effective at targeting and killing dangerous bacteria.

Superbugs are a global health problem with around 700,000 deaths per year attributed to them. The World Health Organisation predicts this could rise to 10 million by 2050.

Pathology is key to reducing incorrect use of antibiotics in humans. Microbiology departments are integral to providing fast, detailed reports to doctors about infections. These include results of tests that reveal which antibiotics are effective against a certain bacteria and which won’t work.

Every time a bacteria is exposed to a drug that doesn’t kill it, the bacteria ‘learns’ about the drug and adapts to it. When the bacteria divides into offspring, they carry the ability to resist the drug in their genes. By reducing the administration of ineffective antibiotics, pathology helps the patient get better fast and reduces the growth of resistant bacteria.

Read the full report about the breakthrough here.

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UK based artist Luke Jerram challenges this representation by making gorgeous glass replicas of a variety of deadly infectious bugs. The transparent glass is a more accurate depiction of how these wee beasties really look.

His delicate creations resonate with the fragile nature of many well-known pathogens. People are familiar with the often ravaging effects these agents have when they are kept in their preferred environment inside a human body. But did you know that many viruses are extremely fragile and easily destroyed when outside the body?

It’s well known among scientists that HIV, for example, is easily killed with simple detergent.

Luke collaborates with virology experts at the University of Bristol and a team of glass blowers to make these beautiful sculptures.

Check out his artwork and travelling exhibition dates here:

https://www.lukejerram.com/glass/

The post Beautiful glass sculptures reveal the delicate nature of viruses first appeared on Know Pathology Know Healthcare.