People often ask me if we have to go to exotic places to the isolate new bacteria. There are articles about scientists going to the Amazon, or the oceanic thermal vents and other unique locations for microbial isolation. I often tell people of a story I heard once that a scientist went to the Arctic to isolate cold temperature bacteria and was very successful. Upon turning home, on a whim he decided to see if he could find cold temperature bacteria in his own backyard. Not only did he find cold temperature bacteria, he found some of the same ones in found in the Arctic. That hits close to home. We like isolating strains here out of local ponds, lakes, carwash pits, you name it.
Here's one that hits even closer to home. Scientists decided to determine how many bacteria were found in belly buttons. Go to this link for more details http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/science-scope/scientists-discover-662-new-microbes-8212-in-95-belly-buttons/9130. Not only did they find 1400 new bacterial strains, they found 662 new microbes never discovered before!
Go figure, you can be microbial pioneer by studying your own belly button.
Michael R. King, Ph.D.
mike.king@mdgbio.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/mikekingmdg
http://www.mdgbio.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment