Anaerobic soil bacteria fighting cancer

Interesting article sent to me by Dr Vick

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-14761417

The bacteria they refer to is Clostridium sporogenes. Many of you will recall that this genus is one of the endospore-formers, and that this genus is primarily anaerobic. The general idea is that the C. sporogenes can grow within the tissues because it is anaerobic. This is not necessarily intuitive to me because I seem to recall that vascularization (and hence blood/oxygen supply)  is an important feature of a tumor - but there must be more to it. 

Anyhow, to those currently in the course - I thought this was timely considering the material that has been covered in this first section

Quick staining technique to view endospores

Quick staining technique to view endospores was noted on MicrobeWorld. Presumably they would need to be out of the cell already, and it helps that there are some fully intact bacteria for size comparison. We'll need to give this a try in class!

http://www.microbeworld.org/index.php?option=com_jlibrary&view=article&id=7411&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=twitter