#appliedmicrobiology

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Should we be Concerned about Biohacking?

Should we be Concerned about Biohacking?

The first thing most people will have thought when they read the title of this blog would be “what on Earth is ‘Biohacking’?”. A quick google of this new buzzword comes up with a variety of results, since a lot of different organisations have tried to coin the phrase as their own. One group associates biohacking with a way of unlocking a person’s inner potential by ‘hacking’ the human body with…

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The Microbial Machine – What does Microbiology mean for SynBio?

The Microbial Machine – What does Microbiology mean for SynBio?

Synthetic biology (or ‘synbio’ as it is often abbreviated) is one of those fields in biology which is hard to define. Most tend to agree that it involves in some way the engineering of biological systems, but the field evolves and changes so rapidly that it’s hard to pin a universal definition to it before something ground-breaking turns our conceptions upside down. Synbio aims to modify…

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Whole Genome Sequencing - The Expert's Point of View

Whole Genome Sequencing – The Expert’s Point of View

In April 2016, SfAM held its annual spring meeting on the topic of whole genome sequencing (WGS), asking “What can it do for clinical and public health microbiology?”

With experts from many fields both giving presentations and in the audience, they took the opportunity to make a change to their usual proceedings and finished the day with a lively panel discussion. While you really had to be there…

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The Molecular biologist’s tool belt: PCR

The Molecular biologist’s tool belt: PCR

The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and the subsequent development of the thermocycler – the machine that carries it out – has revolutionised the use of genetics in the lab. Simply put, PCR takes a small amount of template DNA, and repeatedly copies a small section to create a much larger amount of this small section. Almost every protocol in molecular biology at some point will require some…

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The death and resurrection of the wine industry – a yeast story

The death and resurrection of the wine industry – a yeast story

  The threat of continued global warming and climate change presents us with dire consequences for the state of the world as we know it. We’re faced with such tragedies as the ice caps melting, the disappearance of species as they struggle to adapt, and of course, the end of the global wine industry.  As planet Earth’s temperatures slowly creep up, many of the worlds vineyards and wineries are…

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Life without oxygen - getting started with anaerobic microorganisms

Life without oxygen – getting started with anaerobic microorganisms

For most of us, culturing bacteria is usually quick and easy. With pre-poured plates, ready-made media, purpose built flasks and shakers that stay within a fraction of a degree of the temperature you set them to, culturing cells on agar or in liquid is almost second nature to microbiologists. There is a group of microorganisms, however, that are a little more involved when being grown in the lab…

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Bioremediation - our planet's panacea or Pandora's box?

Bioremediation – our planet’s panacea or Pandora’s box?

When talking about the goals of applied microbiology, one of the largest targets is a process known as ‘bioremediation’, defined as the use of living organisms to remove dangerous or toxic products from the environment. Although breakthroughs in genetic engineering and high throughput screening have changed the way we approach this goal, bioremediation in some form or another has been around for…

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Know your culture - a quick reference guide

Know your culture – a quick reference guide

Culture is a technique where we grow microorganisms in a nutritional liquid or on a solid medium in order to increase numbers and simplify identification. It is also important as a first step in several laboratory techniques and for testing of antimicrobial sensitivity.

There are many types of medium available for culturing microorganisms, and so it is important to know which is best to use –…

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