Liming is a cost-effective treatment currently employed in many Class B biosolids production plants in the United States. A bench scale model of lime stabilization was designed to evaluate the persistence of viral, bacterial and parasitic pathogens. The survival of fecal coliforms, Salmonella, adenovirus type 5, rotavirus Wa, bacteriophage MS-2, Cryptosporidium parvum oocysts, Giardia lamblia c...

Whereas the reduction of transfusion related viral transmission has been a priority during the last decade, bacterial infection transmitted by transfusion still remains associated to a high morbidity and mortality, and constitutes the most frequent infectious risk of transfusion. This problem especially concerns platelet concentrates because of their favorable bacterial growth conditions. This ...

Campylobacter is a major waterborne pathogen that can be found in rivers of the Mediterranean area. Characteristics of these rivers change throughout the seasons due to variations in environmental parameters. As these variations may affect water survival of Campylobacter, we analyzed it in the Llobregat River using three approaches whose complexity increase progressively: (i) river water microc...

The treatment of the sewage sludge produced in the biological treatment plants have increasingly become a serious problem. For this reason, when the reuse and the disposal of the sludge are taken into consideration, the pathogens that the sludge contains should be seriously reduced. In this study, as an alternative to traditional treatment methods for the purpose of pathogen inactivation in sew...

Ultrafast lasers in the visible and near-infrared range have emerged as a potential new method for pathogen reduction of blood products and pharmaceuticals. However, the mechanism of enveloped virus inactivation by this method is unknown. We report the inactivation as well as the molecular and structural effects caused by visible (425 nm) femtosecond laser irradiation on murine cytomegalovirus ...

Outbreaks of water-borne disease via public water supplies continue to be reported in developed countries even though there is increased awareness of, and treatment for, pathogen contamination. Pathogen episodes in lakes and reservoirs are often associated with rain events, and the riverine inflow is considered to be major source of pathogens. Consequently, the behaviour of these inflows is of ...

Pseudomonas syringae pv. tabaci, a commonly recognized leaf pathogen of tobacco, can infest the rhizosphere of many plants, including oats. Normal oat plants do not survive this infestation as a consequence of the complete and irreversible inactivation of all of their glutamine synthetases by tabtoxinine-beta-lactam (TbetaL), a toxin released by pv. tabaci. We have identified a population of oa...

Besides the current efforts devoted to microbial risk reduction, pathogen inactivation technologies promise reduction of the residual risk of known and emerging infectious agents. A novel pathogen reduction process for platelets, the THERAFLEX UV-Platelets system, has been developed and is under clinical evaluation for its efficacy and safety. In addition, proof of principle has been shown for ...