General Bacteriology

Clostridium difficile is a spore-forming, Gram-positive anaerobic bacillus that produces two exotoxins: toxin A and toxin B. It accounts for 15-25% of all episodes of antibiotic-associated diarrhoea. Clostridium difficile infections cause nausea, fever, diarrhea, and abdominal pain. [1]

Leiber, a German producer of yeast products, submitted a request of health claim saying that its beta-glucan of yeast “helps to maintain the body's defence against pathogens in the upper respiratory tract”. It is already the second trial presenting new informations to the EFSA Panel on Dietetic Products, Nutrition and Allergies (NDA) European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). [1]

The Farmers' Services Centre (FSC), a government body tasked with modernising Abu Dhabi farms, has teamed up with UAE University to produce dried tomatoes from surplus crops. The university's researchers tested drying the tomatoes directly in the sun and using a solar drier.

Bacteriocins are bacteriocidal toxins released by almost all bacteria. They may inhibit the growth of similar or closely related bacterial strains.  They act somehow like yeast and paramecium killing factors. The use of bacteriocins in the food industry may reduce the addition of chemical preservatives as well as the intensity of heat treatments, resulting in foods that are more naturally preserved.

According to Ottman et al. 2012 meta-omics studies the intestinal microbiota. Met-omics comprises: Metagenomics which  is DNA-based, metatranscriptomics which  studies the total transcribed RNA, metaproteomics focuses on protein levels and metabolomics describes metabolic profiles.

According to a study by UAE University carried out at Tawam Hospital, in Al Ain, found that the incidence of  Meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), doubled between 2003 and 2008. Sonnevend et al 2012 write in this study that the emergence of CA-MRSA clones with subsequent entry to and spread within the hospital has contributed to the increasing incidence of MRSA observed in Tawam Hospital.

The study notes that 5.2 percent of analysed strains of Staphyllococcus aureus were resistant to  meticillin in 2003 while this number rose to 12.3 percent in 2008.

Diseases such as typhoid, cholera, and dysentery agents of human or animal faecal origin may contaminate drinking water. At highest risk are people which depend on unsafe water of shallow wells, open water sources wells, rivers or lakes which are not being tested for safety. [1]

Antibiotic resistance in soil bacteria had its beginning much before the start of medical use of antibiotics. There are evidences that soil bacteria developed antibiotics resistance genes responding to pressure  from fungi and other bacteria. The primary antibiotic resistance gene pool originated and diversified within the environmental bacterial communities The soil bacteria exchanged such genes with pathogen bacteria.