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Bacteria, Bacterial diseases > E Coli
Escherichia coli (E. coli)
Escherichia coli (E. coli) is a type of bacteria common in human and animal intestines, and forms part of the normal gut flora (the bacteria that exist in the bowel).
There are a number of different types of E. coli and while the majority are harmless some can cause serious food poisoning and serious infection.
For example, E. coli bacteria are a common cause of cystitis, an infection of the bladder that occurs when there is a spread of the bacteria from the gut to the urinary system.
Women are more susceptible to urinary tract infection by E. coli because of the close proximity of the urethra and the anus.
Some types of E. coli can cause gastrointestinal infections.
As the bacteria can survive outside of the body, its levels serve as a measure of general hygiene and faecal contamination of an environment.
A common mode of infection is by eating food that is contaminated with the bacteria.
Some E. coli strains produce toxins (Shiga toxins) that can cause severe illness.
One common strain called E. coli 0157 produces such toxins and is usually responsible for the outbreaks that are covered by the news. https://www.nhs.uk/news/food-and-diet/facts-about-e-coli/ - September 14, 2009
Symptoms of E. coli sickness vary from person to person but often include severe stomach cramps, diarrhea that is often bloody, vomiting and a fever.
These symptoms usually start within three to four days after the bacteria is swallowed, the CDC said, and most people recover without treatment within a week.
https://www.npr.org/2022/08/18/
https://www.nhs.uk/news/food-and-diet/
https://www.theguardian.com/world/
2024
https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/
2023
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/13/
2022
https://www.npr.org/2022/09/04/
https://www.npr.org/2022/08/18/
2019
https://www.theguardian.com/world/shortcuts/2019/oct/23/
2018
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/05/
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/08/29/
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/01/
strain > E. coli O157:H7 strain
https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/
spread E coli UK
https://www.theguardian.com/world/shortcuts/2019/oct/23/
bacterial bloodstream infections UK
https://www.theguardian.com/world/shortcuts/2019/oct/23/
routes UK
https://www.theguardian.com/world/shortcuts/2019/oct/23/
E. Coli Outbreak USA
https://www.reuters.com/business/
https://www.npr.org/2022/08/18/
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/08/29/
raise health alarms USA
https://www.npr.org/2022/08/18/
microbiology USA
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/13/
Evelyn Ruth Maisel USA 1921-2023
Evelyn M. Witkin (...) discovered how DNA repairs Itself
Her findings led to breakthroughs in the treatment of cancer and in the understanding of the mechanics of evolution.
(...)
In a career that began at the dawn of modern genetic research in the late 1940s, Dr. Witkin explored the ways in which radiation both damaged DNA and generated a repair mechanism, what she came to call the SOS response.
The repair mechanism produces an enzyme that in turn creates replacement parts for the damaged DNA.
But it’s an imperfect process that can at times turn out slightly different versions, or mutations
— what scientists call mutagenesis.
Her insight into the SOS response, which Dr. Witkin developed with Miroslav Radman, then a scientist at the Free University of Brussels, shed new light on how solar radiation and chemicals in the environment affect
humans’ genetic makeup.
“She discovered the first coordinated response to stress in cells,” Joann Sweasy, a geneticist at the University of Arizona who studied under Dr. Witkin, said in a phone interview.
“And that’s so incredibly important for understanding evolution, and for understanding mutagenesis in terms of tumors.”
Dr. Witkin was still a graduate student at Columbia when she spent the summer of 1944 working at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, on the north shore of Long Island.
Though she had no background in microbiology — her research until then had been with fruit flies — on her first day there she was assigned to generate mutations in cultures of the bacteria E. coli.
She placed several under a germicidal ultraviolet lamp.
Almost all of them died.
But four colonies survived.
“At this point, I asked, ‘Why did they survive? Maybe a mutation made them resistant,’” Dr. Witkin told The New York Times in 2016.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/13/
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/13/
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/15/
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Alexander Fleming UK 1881-1955
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