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Leica’s European Tour comes to IBEC

Leica workshopThis week, IBEC scientists and other staff from the PCB are enjoying some special workshops given by Leica.

From Tuesday to Thursday IBEC is the host institution in Spain of Leica’s European Tour 2016, which allows researchers to get hands-on with some of the company’s most cutting-edge microscopes and other equipment.

The technologies being presented and demonstrated at this week’s workshops are the DMi8 inverted microscope with Fluorescence Recovery After Photobleaching (FRAP) module, their SP8 X Confocal Microscope with WLL and Hybrid Detectors, HyVolution confocal super-resolution imaging, and the Leica TCS SP8 with Digital LightSheet. Researchers are able to test their own samples in these pieces of equipment.

The enzymes that enable bacteria to make themselves at home

torrentsFig2_webIBEC researchers have come a step closer to understanding how bacteria can cause chronic infections by identifying the key enzymes that allow them to create the right conditions for infection.

When P. aeruginosa bacteria cause chronic lung infections in patients with cystic fibrosis or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), it means they have been able to form a mature biofilm in situ that lets them grow and adapt. This biofilm not only enhances cell-to-cell communication for the bacteria, thus allowing the infection to increase and thrive, but it also increases the chances of developing new antibiotic resistance and escape from the body’s immune system.