Customer Spotlight Video

Description:

With rates of colon cancer rapidly on the rise among younger individuals, Dr. Cynthia Sears, M.D., a professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, is racing to uncover how the gut microbiome and specific gut microbes contribute to the development of colon cancer and to identify biomarkers for early detection. Working with gut bacteria, she is often faced with fastidious anaerobic organisms that require an oxygen-free environment to grow. To achieve consistent growth, Dr. Sears has trusted Biolog’s anaerobic chambers and growth media for the past 20+ years. Watch this video to learn more about her work and how she uses Biolog’s innovative solutions.

Transcript:

I work in anaerobes and this began actually because of my interest in diarrheal disease, which led to me being introduced to a new pathogen called Enterotoxigenic Bacteroides fragilis which meant I had to learn anaerobic microbiology. That led to work in how specific organisms and communities contribute to colon cancer.

My work has led to a series of organisms that probably are contributors to human colon cancer. My hope, although I may not achieve that dream, is that we could come up with a way to test individuals earlier to understand how their microbiome, or a biomarker in stool, may be linked to their risk for colon polyps, which are the precursors that can go on, to colon cancer. So, this is really important because across the globe, we have a wave of change in the epidemiology of colon cancer where it’s now affecting younger individuals, even down to teenagers. And we know we need to figure out how to identify people at risk.

I began working with Anaerobe Systems more than 20 years ago, possibly 30 years ago, through my association with the Anaerobe Society of America and meeting Mike Cox, the founder of the company at that time. He was a phenomenal advocate for anaerobic biology teaching and to investigators in the field. I learned to work with anaerobes in part because of him.

These products are really important. If you’re going to work with anaerobes, you have to work with products that are going to enable anaerobes to grow. Anaerobes are organisms that are fastidious and don’t like a lot, if any, oxygen. They vary a little bit in their oxygen sensitivity. So, you have to use an anaerobic chamber to grow the anaerobes and you have to learn how to optimize your conditions for them including your media and other ways that you store and keep the organisms viable. It’s a very special area of microbiology that won’t work if you don’t invest in the training.

Over time, I’ve had the opportunity to look at other anaerobic chambers and a colleague purchased one different than Anaerobe Systems. I have to say, it’s been a struggle to work with that particular system. One of the benefits of working with Anaerobe Systems, or now Biolog, is that there is great expertise. Customer service is great. Steve Cox has come to my lab twice to help us set up the chamber, help us optimize it again after nearly 20 years of use, and to educate members of my laboratory – students, postdocs and technicians – so that we optimize our use of it. My experience has been, if I have a question about an anaerobe, I can write to Steve typically and get an answer within 24 hours. So, it’s a conversation and a community that works together because we know these organisms are fastidious.