Thanks for letting us know what you're working on, and we're glad you're
taking all those precautions.
What you're into is pretty different than what we work with in clinical
micro. We're basically looking for the presence or absence of these
organisms in human specimens. The respiratory specimens are usually
sputum, BAL (bronchial alveolar lavage), bronchoscopy, sinus drainage,
that sort of stuff, and the other specimens are anything from skin
scrapings to infected fingernails and toenails. The primary specimen at
our lab is inoculated onto slants. A respiratory specimen gets a Sab,
BHI with sheep blood enrichment, and a BHI with sheep blood and
antibiotics (to cut down on bacterial overgrowth). If yeasts and/or
filamentous fungi grow, then we identify them to species, if possible.
Our Ph.D. only worries about two species of Aspergillus: A. fumigatus
(grows at 45 degrees C and is blue green) and A. niger which is black.
All other Aspergillus (typical morphology on scotch tape prep) gets
signed out as Aspergillus species not fumigatus.
Do you work for a food company? Just curious about the connection with
preservatives. I don't know a thing about non-medical micro and it
sounds interesting.
I had to work last weekend - over my birthday, even! :-(. Oh well, such
is life.
Judy Dilworth, M.T. (ASCP)
Microbiology
nmaccallister at webtv.net wrote:
>> Thanks for your reinforcing the safety and cross-contamination issues
> involved in any microbial work. All my platings and transfers are done
> in an externally exhausted (double HEPA filtered) validated flow-hood.
> I wash that hood with IPA before and after bacterial work, and a dilute
> bleach solution after fungal work. I always wear gloves, Tyvek sleeve
> guards, filter mask, and safety glasses.
> My purpose is to test the kill rate of some commonly used preservatives......
