Fighting Fire with Fire

512px-Bacillus_subtilis_Gram_stain

A study published in PLOSone back in September analyzed the microbial-fighting capability of … well, microbes. The authors evaluated the efficacy of cleaning hospital rooms with food-grade Bacillus subtilis, Bacillus pumilus, and Bacillus megaterium. The authors concluded that cleaning hospitals rooms with these organisms reduced the number of hospital-acquired-infection-causing organisms on surfaces.

It’s an intriguing idea, and not that out of the box; lots of antimicrobial agents are derived from other microorganisms (I’m looking at you, penicillin). It’ll be interesting to see where other researchers take this.

Click here to read the full study.

Swails

Kelly Swails, MT(ASCP), is a laboratory professional, recovering microbiologist, and web editor for Lab Medicine.

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