Dried blood spots perform well to identify patients with active HCV infection in Vietnam.

Recently, treatment advances in direct-acting antivirals have radically changed the management of HCV patients. However, in resource-limited countries, identification of patients with active HCV infection is still challenging in remote settings due to the limited access to laboratories able to measure HCV viral load. This study evaluated whether dried blood spots (DBS) transferred to a central laboratory could overcome this challenge.

Segregostat: a novel concept to control phenotypic diversification dynamics on the example of Gram-negative bacteria.

Controlling and managing the degree of phenotypic diversification of microbial populations is a challenging task. This task not only requires detailed knowledge regarding diversification mechanisms but also advanced technical set-ups for the real-time analyses and control of population behaviour on single-cell level. In this work, set-up, design and operation of the so called segregostat are described which, in contrast to a traditional chemostat, allows the control of phenotypic diversification of microbial populations over time.

Growth-dependent recombinant product formation kinetics can be reproduced through engineering of glucose transport and is prone to phenotypic heterogeneity.

Background: Escherichia coli W3110 and a group of six isogenic derivatives, each displaying distinct specific rates of glucose consumption were characterized to determine levels of GFP production and population heterogeneity. These strains have single or combinatory deletions in genes encoding phosphoenolpyruvate:sugar phosphotransferase system (PTS) permeases as PtsG and ManX, as well as common components EI, Hpr protein and EIIA, also the non-PTS Mgl galactose/glucose ABC transporter. They have been transformed for expressing GFP based on a lac-based expression vector, which is subject to bistability.