In article <37q2bb$59t at newsbf01.news.aol.com> bcapstone at aol.com (BCapstone) writes:
| Can you pick up a bacterium. I am wondering if any of the technology in
| medicine or biology could be used to separate out a rod from a mixture of
| cocci and sperm. Can't be done by culture. E-mail: BCapstone at aol.com
The laser trap described in the other posting will work, of course, but it
will cost a lot of money.
A long time ago I isolated single paramecia by a simple trick. It might work
for bacteria also. Draw a glass tube and it break off so that one has a
microscopic opening. Put a bulb on the other end. Put a drop of media down on
the slide. Use the micropipette suck up the solution around a bacterium of
interest. Put that down in a drop elsewhere on the slide. One could add a
drop of water to dilute. Repeat as needed until a single specimen is
isolated. I never tried this with bacteria, so it may be harder.
Tom Schneider
National Cancer Institute
Laboratory of Mathematical Biology
Frederick, Maryland 21702-1201
toms at ncifcrf.govhttp://fconvx.ncifcrf.gov:2001/~toms/info.html
