Awards for ICC Water & Health

The inter-university cooperation of TU Vienna, Medical University Vienna and Karl Landsteiner University in Krems was recently doubly acclaimed. Both the Austrian Award For Microbiology and the  Austrian Hygiene Award 2018 were granted to members of the group at the 36th annual meeting of the Austrian Society For Hygiene, Microbiology and Preventive Medicine in Graz.

The Austrian Hygiene Award was granted to the two post-graduate students DI Claudi Kolm and Mag.Roland Martzy of Prof.Dr.Farnleitner´s research group for their research on „Fast track procedures for the detection of enterococci in environmental waters“, which would enable the detection procedure to be implemented in situ instead of at the laboratory.

The Austrian Award For Microbiology was granted to Dr.Silvia Cervero-Aragó and Mag. Barbara Schrammel of Prof.Dr.Kirschner´s team for their research on living but not cultivatable legionellae. As legionellae cause Legionary Disease and research suggests that the concentration in water distribution systems by far exceed those being detected through conventional research methods, research results on these non cultivatable legionellae promise findings on protracted progress of disease in immunocompromised patients.

ICC Water & Health is a funded cooperation of the Technical University Vienna, the Medical University Vienna and – since 2017 – Karl Landsteiner Private University for Health Sciences in Krems. All papers awarded stem from synergies of differing fundings and projects at the junction of applied and fundamental research. For more information on ICC Water & Health please consult www.waterandhealth.

All publications can be accessed at Open Access Option on the net.

The publications:

* Kolm, C., Martzy, R., Brunner, K., Mach, R.L. Krska, R., Heinze, G., Sommer, R., Reischer, G.H., Farnleitner, A.H., (2017) A complementary isothermal amplification method to the US EPA qPCR approach for the detection of enterococci in environmental waters. Environ Sci Technol 51(12): 7028-7035.

* Martzy, R., Kolm, C., Brunner, K., Mach, R.L. Krska, R., Šinkovec, H., Sommer, R., Farnleitner, A.H., Reischer, G.H. (2017) A loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) assay for the rapid detection of Enterococcus spp. in water. Water Res 122: 62-69.

** Dietersdorfer E, Kirschner AKT, Schrammel B, Ohradanova-Repic A, Stockinger H, Sommer R, Walochnik J, Cervero-Aragó S (2018) Starved viable but non-culturable (VBNC) Legionella strains can infect and replicate in amoebae and human macrophages. Water Research 141 doi: 10.1016/j.watres.2018.01.058

** Schrammel B, Cervero-Arago S, Dietersdorfer E, Walochnik J, Lück C, Sommer R, Kirschner AKT (2018) Differential development of Legionella sub-populations during short- and long-term starvation. Water Research 141, doi: 0.1016/j.watres.2018.04.027