Aquabiochip Offers Tools For A New Era In Microbial Monitoring

摘要

For more than six decades, monitoring of indicator organisms (Escherichia coli and Enterococci) combined with treatment-based barriers has served US communities well by minimizing the health hazards represented by microbial contaminants in drinking water. However, the percentage of outbreaks with unknown etiology and some rare, costly, and large-scale outbreaks are evidence of a significant microbial risk that needs to be addressed. Elimination of such risks requires more extensive monitoring, preferably directly for the pathogens of interest. The cost and the uncertainty of what to monitor are the two main factors that have kept pathogen-specific monitoring from becoming the preferred or even a complementary approach in water treatment. However, advancements in genomics and centralized screening for many pathogens together have brought costs to reasonable limits and eliminated the need to select a single organism.