Tag Archives: polymerase chain reaction

Testing Water for Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are an important concern for disease prevention in the future. UA doctoral candidate Victoria Obergh is testing Tucson-area wastewater systems to find out where these bacteria can be found.

In the lab, Victoria Obergh transfers bacterial DNA samples into a tray. A graduate student in the University of Arizona’s Department of Soil, Water and Environmental Science, part of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Obergh works with the samples under a sterile hood sporting an ultraviolet light to kill any unwanted DNA. (more…)

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UA Solution for Deadly Shrimp Disease to Become Available Worldwide

UA researchers have developed a rapid screening test to detect disease-causing bacteria in commercial shrimp farms.

A bacterial disease called early mortality syndrome is killing off the stocks of the world’s three largest shrimp producers: Thailand, China and Vietnam. In some places, production is down by nearly 50 percent from last year. But there is hope. Don Lightner in the School of Animal and Comparative Biomedical Sciences at the UA College of Agriculture and Life Sciences has a solution for detecting the bacteria in the stocks, allowing infected populations to be separated from healthy ones. (more…)

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The final nail in the Jurassic Park coffin

It is hardly possible to talk about fossil insects in amber without the 1993 movie Jurassic Park entering the debate.

The idea of recreating dinosaurs by extracting DNA from insects in amber has held the fascination of the public for two decades. Claims for successful extraction of DNA from ambers up to 130 million-years-old by various scientists in the early 1990s were only seriously questioned when a study at the Natural History Museum, London, was unable to replicate the process. The original claims are now considered by many to be a text-book example of modern contaminant DNA in the samples. Nonetheless, some scientists hold fast to their original claims.

Research just published in the journal The Public Library of Science ONE (PLOS ONE) by a team of researchers from the Faculty of Life Sciences at The University of Manchester can now confirm that the existence of DNA in amber fossils is highly unlikely. The team led by amber expert Dr David Penney and co-ordinated by ancient DNA expert Professor Terry Brown used highly-sensitive ‘next generation’ sequencing techniques – the most advance type of DNA sequencing – on insects in copal, the sub-fossilized resin precursor of amber. (more…)

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A SMART(er) Way to Track Influenza

Brown University researchers have created a reliable and fast flu-detection test that can be carried in a first-aid kit. The novel prototype device isolates influenza RNA using a combination of magnetics and microfluidics, then amplifies and detects probes bound to the RNA. The technology could lead to real-time tracking of influenza. Results are published in the Journal of Molecular Diagnostics.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — In April 2009, the world took notice as reports surfaced of a virus in Mexico that had mutated from pigs and was being passed from human to human. The H1N1 “swine flu,” as the virus was named, circulated worldwide, killing more than 18,000 people, according to the World Health Organization. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States said it was the first global pandemic in more than four decades. (more…)

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Innovation Served on a Napkin: How GTRI Moved a Simple Idea From Inspiration to Fabrication

A ground-breaking innovation, birthed in a sudden flash of insight, is the stuff of legend. Air conditioning, Kevlar, the DNA-replicating process known as PCR (polymerase chain reaction) — each was the product of a Eureka! moment. The list may soon be longer by one, thanks to a wandering mind and a napkin.

When Jud Ready attended an academic conference on materials science in Boston in 2003, he didn’t plan on coming home with the idea for a three-dimensional solar cell, but that’s what happened. (more…)

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Kartchner Caverns: A Living Microbe Laboratory

*In the first extensive genetic survey of microbes living in Kartchner Caverns, UA doctoral candidate Marian Ortiz has shown that some of the cave-dwelling microbes may have anti-microbial and anti-fungal properties.*

In a hole in the ground, there lives a microbe. Actually, there live several microbes. What are they and how do they survive in conditions practically devoid of resources or other forms of life?

Doctoral candidate Marian Ortiz in the University of Arizona’s department of soil, water and environmental science is trying to find out. (more…)

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