An article posted today at The Atlantic discusses fecal transplants and FDA regulation. Dr. Colleen Kraft (co-author of a paper on fecal transplant protocols that appeared in Lab Medicine) is quoted in the article, and it’s worth a read.
Tag: hospital acquired infections
Fighting Fire with Fire
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.
–Kelly Swails, MT(ASCP), is a laboratory professional, recovering microbiologist, and web editor for Lab Medicine.
Lablogatory 