Did you ever think how useful it would be to have all your malaria learning material in the same place? I did. After all, it was getting a bit untidy. So they’ve all been moved to the Priobe Net home page. Links will take you from there to all our malaria media. Future items will be linked to there as well.

The μgnome scurried out of his burrow yesterday to make a few points about applied cell biology for microbiologists. The main thrust of his argument was that as we have the technology at hand, the question is no longer ‘can we do it?’ It’s a matter of practical application – what can be done with the technology, what specific applications are chosen, when these should be used and what should be done with the results.

The μgnome suggested a short list of potential clinical microbiology applications:

• attribution of a causal role to a given priobe or causal agent
• prediction of the likely course of infection
• targeting of early antimicrobial interventions
• guidance on the efficacy of public health control measures

The μgnome highlighted the possible role for advanced microscopy tools with two cases of ophthalmic infections; one parasitic, the other fungal.

Key microscopic methods demonstrated were:

• confocal microscopy (Acanthamoeba, mycorrhizal fungi)
• high resolution scanning electron microscopy (black & white images with subtitles!)
• whole slide scanning

Other methods discussed were

• flow cytometer analysis of fluorescent live/dead labelled bacterial cells
• small animal imaging for fluorescent probes
• image based reporting for parasites, fungi and mycobacteria

Asked to predict where this was likely to make a difference in clinical practice, the μgnome predicted that it would be image-based reporting of early growth bacteria in blood cultures and other sterile fluids, and possibly targeted live/dead cell analysis of drug-bug combinations to provide an early guide to antibiotic efficacy.

μgnome, 26th March