Yeah, isolating an unknown microbe is a Biosafety Level 2 activity. Unless you're really good at using sterile technique, the chances of isolating human pathogens from your own skin or breath are quite significant. You may be OK with having them in low abundance in your microbiome, but if you grow a whole plate full of it in pure culture, they could make you or your labmates very sick. Did you know that a surprisingly large number of healthy adults carry MRSA on their skin, for example?
-- Adding antibiotics is not really a solution - that'll just select for even nastier antibiotic resistant bacteria. You could use a broad-spectrum fungicide such as nystatin or natamycin if you specifically want to select bacteria instead of molds or yeasts.
You can try to bias which organisms to select for, by picking a suitable growth medium and growing conditions.Enterics such as E. coli, or skin bacteria such as S. aureus tend to like a saltier medium such as LB that matches the human body. So use a low-salt medium such as nutrient agar, and incubate at room temperature instead of body temperature. That's still not a guarantee that you won't select for any pathogens, but it should at least lower the odds.
Your best bet though, is to start from a source that you know is safe, such as food. Yoghurt, kombucha, sourdough starter, beer yeast, sauerkraut, cheese, probiotic supplements,... You'll still have to make sure you avoid any contamination, and you'll have to make sure to validate the identity of your isolate before getting too comfortable with it. But at least it'll be a damn lot safer than smearing some dog poop on an LB plate and incubating at 37C...
Patrik
-- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups DIYbio group. To post to this group, send email to diybio@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to diybio+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at https://groups.google.com/d/forum/diybio?hl=en
Learn more at www.diybio.org
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "DIYbio" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to diybio+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to diybio@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/diybio.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/diybio/22fe9929-4365-443d-9c33-1e8b42aa0cb2%40googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
0 comments:
Post a Comment