In these very hours, my daughter is turning two years old! This blog was put up one year ago as she was celebrating the conclusion of her first year on this planet, and given all the fun I've had along the way putting up posts on this and that, I'd like to dedicate the blog to her. In return(!), I take the liberty of using some of her artwork for this post which marks the birthday of the Blastocystis Parasite Blog.
It's surprising to me that this blog has had more than 50,000 views in only one year. Due to all the feedback I get, I'm prone to believe that most of the page views reflect factual "blog consumption" (rather than referral spam and bots). Anyway, even if there were only a few people out there who'd stop by every now and then, my efforts would certainly be worthwhile.
Blastocystis has been known for more than 100 years. But it is only recently that we have found tools to enable accurate distinction of Blastocystis carriers from non-carriers, thanks to DNA-based diagnostic methods. Last year, we published a paper on our new real-time PCR in Journal of Clinical Microbiology, and it seems as if we now finally have the chance to try and use it for screening a larger panel of faecal DNAs from patients with and without intestinal symptoms to get an idea about the factual prevalence of Blastocystis in this type of samples with the added benefit of analysis of colonisation intensity. It's very exciting...
And to those who are involved in Blastocystis subtyping, - in case you didn't see it, there is a paper out on the comparison of the two principal methods used for subtyping which you might find useful.
I've also added a few lines on barcoding in "Lab Stuff" for those who are new to subtyping and want to practice a bit - please go here.
We are currently trying to strengthen collaborative efforts of different labs across the world and we are facing some very exciting challenges, involving the generation and analysis of data output related to genomics, transcriptomics, metagenomics and possibly proteomics; more about that in "Season II" of the Blastocystis Parasite Blog!
But for now: Happy birthday, Raiya! And Happy Easter everyone!
Suggested reading:
Stensvold CR (2013). Comparison of sequencing (barcode region) and sequence-tagged-site PCR for Blastocystis subtyping. Journal of Clinical Microbiology, 51 (1), 190-4. PMID: 23115257
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| Artwork by Raiya Rochelle Traub |
It's surprising to me that this blog has had more than 50,000 views in only one year. Due to all the feedback I get, I'm prone to believe that most of the page views reflect factual "blog consumption" (rather than referral spam and bots). Anyway, even if there were only a few people out there who'd stop by every now and then, my efforts would certainly be worthwhile.
Blastocystis has been known for more than 100 years. But it is only recently that we have found tools to enable accurate distinction of Blastocystis carriers from non-carriers, thanks to DNA-based diagnostic methods. Last year, we published a paper on our new real-time PCR in Journal of Clinical Microbiology, and it seems as if we now finally have the chance to try and use it for screening a larger panel of faecal DNAs from patients with and without intestinal symptoms to get an idea about the factual prevalence of Blastocystis in this type of samples with the added benefit of analysis of colonisation intensity. It's very exciting...
And to those who are involved in Blastocystis subtyping, - in case you didn't see it, there is a paper out on the comparison of the two principal methods used for subtyping which you might find useful.
I've also added a few lines on barcoding in "Lab Stuff" for those who are new to subtyping and want to practice a bit - please go here.
We are currently trying to strengthen collaborative efforts of different labs across the world and we are facing some very exciting challenges, involving the generation and analysis of data output related to genomics, transcriptomics, metagenomics and possibly proteomics; more about that in "Season II" of the Blastocystis Parasite Blog!
But for now: Happy birthday, Raiya! And Happy Easter everyone!
Suggested reading:
Stensvold CR (2013). Comparison of sequencing (barcode region) and sequence-tagged-site PCR for Blastocystis subtyping. Journal of Clinical Microbiology, 51 (1), 190-4. PMID: 23115257
Stensvold, C., Ahmed, U., Andersen, L., & Nielsen, H. (2012). Development and Evaluation of a Genus-Specific, Probe-Based, Internal-Process-Controlled Real-Time PCR Assay for Sensitive and Specific Detection of Blastocystis spp. Journal of Clinical Microbiology, 50 (6), 1847-51. DOI: 10.1128/JCM.00007-12
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