Tuberculosis in badgers where the bovine tuberculosis epidemic is expanding in cattle in England.

Bovine tuberculosis (bTB) is an important animal health and economic problem for the cattle industry and a potential zoonotic threat. Wild badgers (Meles meles) play a role on its epidemiology in some areas of high prevalence in cattle, particularly in the UK and Republic of Ireland and increasingly in parts of mainland Europe. However, little is known about the involvement of badgers in areas on the spatial edge of the cattle epidemic, where increasing prevalence in cattle is seen.

"Scentsor": A Whole-Cell Yeast Biosensor with an Olfactory Reporter for Low-Cost and Equipment-Free Detection of Pharmaceuticals.

Portable and inexpensive analytical tools are required to monitor pharmaceutical quality in technology limited settings including low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Whole cell yeast biosensors have the potential to help meet this need. However, most of the readouts for yeast biosensors require expensive equipment or reagents.

The development and use of Actiphage to detect viable mycobacteria from bovine tuberculosis and Johne's disease-infected animals.

Here, we describe the development of a method that exploits bacteriophage D29 as a lysis agent for efficient DNA extraction from low numbers of mycobacterial cells. This method (Actiphage ) used in combination with PCR achieved rapid and sensitive (LOD ≤ 10 cell ml ) detection and identification of viable, pathogenic mycobacteria in blood samples within 6 h. We demonstrate that mycobacteriophage D29 can be used to detect a range of mycobacteria from clinical blood samples including both Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex and Mycobacterium avium subsp.