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Ann Arbor lab finds anti-biotic-resistant bacteria in Canadian water

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

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Higher Education, Research, University Of Michigan

Ann Arbor

An Ann Arbor researcher is playing a key role in keeping the water clean in Toronto.

Excerpt:

Bacteria resistant to some antibiotics have been found in Toronto tap water, a University of Michigan scientist says.

The water remains safe to drink, he said, but the finding raises the possibility that disease-causing bacteria will pick up the resistance genes.

In the United States, researchers have found bacteria that have evolved to become resistant to some antibiotics in some municipal water supplies.

At his lab in Ann Arbor, Mich., microbiologist Prof. Chuanwu Xi showed a stack of petri dishes, some filled with yellow dots of bacteria that should have been killed off by antibiotics. The source of the bacteria was drinking water from several communities in Ohio and Michigan.

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