Micrograph of a bacteriophageWednesday 26 September 2007
Microbiology
I've just finished my pre-lab that is due in a couple of hours at my microbiology practical. Today we are playing with bacteriphages. They are such interesting little things that I thought I might share them with you. They are not considered to be alive because they can't reproduce without a host, but they do have their own DNA. They are too small to be seen with conventional light microscopes, but can be seen with electron microscopes. They resemble a science fiction creation (check out the micrograph) which injects its DNA into a bacterial cell. The bacteriophage hijacks the cell and uses it to make copies of itself and then breaks out through the cell wall- killing the bacteria. Research is being done in using them in medicine rather than antibiotics, and so far it looks pretty promising. The only problem with them is that to culture them in the lab we have to extract them from sewage : (
Micrograph of a bacteriophage
Micrograph of a bacteriophage
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4 comments:
Good news- in the interest of health, saftey, and time constraints the prac coordinator decided to select and enrich the bacteriophage for us so we were given just a pure broth of the little guys and didn't have to play with any sewage : )
Did you actually see them in the microsope? And did they move?
I must say - they look pretty sweet.
Sort of a cross between a spider, a dalek, and the Borg.
No- we don't get to play with the electron microscopes (something to do with the fact they are so expensive that there are only a couple in the state). All we got to do is see that they were actually there because they were killing all the little E.coli bugs
How disapointing :(
Would be cool to say you'd seen them.
Lol - just remembered something.
Years ago, we we were at Calebs and one of us sneezed, he saw an ear-wig and was sure it was a germ from the sneeze!
But then again - he also ate fermented jam that'd been left outside in his 'humpy' for months - so its no wonder he was a little strange at times.
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