Suppose you are a medical technician working in a hospital laboratory and you collected a sputum sample from a critically ill patient suspected of having tuberculosis. You, of course, go back to the lab and attempt to culture and identify this dangerous, fastidious, and slow-growing microorganism, a process that can take 8 weeks. However, a quick verification of the tuberculosis diagnosis is needed. Can you think of a possible method or technology that can help speed the process? If so, what is it and how does it work?
Want to see the full answer?
Check out a sample textbook solutionChapter 7 Solutions
Microbiology: Principles and Explorations
Additional Science Textbook Solutions
Study Guide for Campbell Biology
Microbiology with Diseases by Body System (4th Edition)
Laboratory Experiments in Microbiology (11th Edition)
Anatomy & Physiology
Human Physiology: An Integrated Approach (7th Edition)
Principles of Anatomy and Physiology
- A glass flask is rinsed and autoclaved after use. It was then filled with sterile media in a sterile environment and covered. A few days, microbial growth appears in the flask. Assume the media and sterile environment is guaranteed to be sterile. What most likely caused the growth in the flask? a. The flask has to be rinsed with bleach before autoclaving b. A portion of the flask was not exposed to the steam c. Autoclaves only sanitize equipment, so you cannot expect the flask to be sterile d. Autoclaving inhibits growth, but does not kill microbesarrow_forwardThe world is facing a Corona Virus (COVID-19) Pandemic and as a potential scientist and a microbiology student, you have been required to prepare the easiest and most affordable hand sanitizer that can be utilized by students in various microbiology laboratories. Each student in your class has been given 96% ethanol and you are required to prepare 70% ethanol hand sanitizer in a 2L spray bottle. Describe clearly the method you will use in order to achieve the aim of the practical.arrow_forwardNote that it is not appropriate to self-diagnose outside of a medical context and this is a completely hypothetical scenario. Imagine you have a rash on your foot. You're concerned that it's an infection and inoculate a sample onto an agar plate. You wonder, How can I figure out whether the pathogen is a bacterium vs a eukaryote? You decide to use lab supplies to get a basic understanding of the pathogen. Be specific about what tests you use and what you expect the results to be. Limit yourself to experiments we could do in our lab. What is one experiment you could do, involving culturing the organism?arrow_forward
- Note that it is not appropriate to self-diagnose outside of a medical context and this is a completely hypothetical scenario. Imagine you have a rash on your foot. You're concerned that it's an infection and inoculate a sample onto an agar plate. You wonder, How can I figure out whether the pathogen is a bacterium vs a eukaryote? You decide to use lab supplies to get a basic understanding of the pathogen. Be specific about what tests you use and what you expect the results to be. Limit yourself to experiments we could do in our lab. What is a procedure you could do, involving making a slide of the organism?arrow_forwardAttached below is the study about the effects of handwashing and the effectiveness of soap against bacteria. What conclusions can be generated from this result? A C before washing hands 10 second hand wash B D hot water only rinse 30 second hand wash Figure 8: Agar plates with bacteria A) before washing hands B) after rinsing hands in hot water C) After washing hands with soap for 10 seconds and D) after washing hands for 30 seconds. Images show that the number of bacteria on the plate are not greatly reduced after a hot water rinse or 10 second handwash but bacterial levels are reduced after a proper hand wash for 30 seconds.arrow_forwardThere are so many microbes in a single mL of culture, it is very difficult to perform one dilution to produce countable cells. Microbiologists need to perform a dilution series, where multiple dilutions are performed in sequence to arrive at the correct dilution. Dilutions are cumulative. Multiple the series of dilutions together to find the final dilution value. If 3 serial dilutions are performed, each with a value of 0.01, what is the cumulative dilution? Express your answer as an exponent, e.g. 0.1 would be 1e-1 and 0.01 would be 1e-2arrow_forward
- One of the early results shows that the post-centrifugation pellet of encapsulated cells also contains EA1 and/or Sap. Why is this not proof that Bacillus anthracis cells have both an S-layer and a capsule simultaneously? I need help finding the answer in the article and explain in short answer link to article: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC106848/arrow_forwardOne of the early results shows that the post-centrifugation pellet of encapsulated cells also contains EA1 and/or Sap. Why is this not proof that Bacillus anthracis cells have both an S-layer and a capsule simultaneously? I need help finding the answer in the article and explain in short answer link to article: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC106848/arrow_forwardThe organism tested on Blood Agar (plate shown furthest to the left) is: a. Micrococccus luteus b. Staphylococcus aureus. c. Staphylococcus epidermidis You know because of which specific features of the hemolytic reactionarrow_forward
- You have learned many different techniques so far this semester that allow us to identify pathogenic microbes in the clinical setting. Why do you think rapid methods are so helpful? Why are traditional tests such as metabolic tests not always used to ID clinically important microbes?arrow_forwardSuppose that you wish to measure the concentration levels of PCBs in air inside a school. You are aiming at using a typical GC injection volume of 3 µL for liquid extracts concentrations between 1 and 50 ng/L. You want to sample air at the school over a 4-hour period and expect the air concentration of the PCBs to be in the order of 1 ng/m³. What should be the volume of air that you need to sample? Would you need the use the high-volume of the low volume method?arrow_forwardYour animal cell culture laboratory suddenly suffered from a bacterial contamination. Several components like vitamins, yeast hydrolysate, and fetal calf serum are temperature sensitive and must be filtered through a bacteriological filter to add to the autoclaved animal cell culture media. After careful considerations, you found that there are no issues with the autoclaving, but there is something wrong with the filter sterilization process, and changing new batches of filter did not remove the bacterial contamination. Which of the following rationale best describes the probable cause? Group of answer choices A. The media is probably contaminated with E. coli, which passed through the 0.2-micron bacteriological filter. B. The media is probably contaminated with Mycoplasma, due to the lack of cell walls they are the only bacteria that can pass through the 0.2-micron bacteriological filter. C. All of the other answer choices could be correct D. The media is probably…arrow_forward