The potential improvement of team-working skills in Biomedical and Natural Science students using a problem-based learning approach

 Teamwork has become an integral part of most organisations today, and it is clearly important in Science and other disciplines. In Science, research teams increase in size while the number of single-authored papers and patents decline. Team-work in laboratory sciences permits projects that are too big or complex for one individual to be tackled. This development requires that students gain experience of team-work before they start their professional career. Students working in teams this may increase productivity, confidence, innovative capacity and improvement of interpersonal skills. Problem-based learning (PBL) is an instructional approach focusing on real analytical problems as a means of training an analytical scientist. PBL may have a positive impact on team-work skills that are important for undergraduates and postgraduates to enable effective collaborative work. This survey of the current literature explores the development of the team-work skills in Biomedical Science students using PBL

Reduced Phase Switch Capacity and Functional Adhesin Expression of Type 1-Fimbriated Escherichia coli from Immunoglobulin A-Deficient Individuals

The mannose-specific adhesin of type 1 fimbriae is the most common adhesin in Escherichia coli. One receptor for this adhesin is the carbohydrate chains of secretory immunoglobulin A (S-IgA), and intestinal E. coli from IgA-deficient individuals has a reduced capacity to adhere to mannose-containing receptors. Here, we investigated the expression of the mannose-specific adhesin and its capacity to switch to the fimbriated phenotype in colonic resident and transient E. coli strains isolated from control (n = 16) and IgA-deficient (n = 17) persons. Resident E. coli strains from IgA-deficient individuals displayed weaker mannose-specific adherence to colonic cells than resident strains from control individuals (21 versus 44 bacteria/cell, P = 0.0009) due to three mechanisms: a lower carriage rate of the fimH gene (90% versus 97%, not significant), more frequent failure to switch on the fim genes (30% versus 6%, P = 0.02), and the reduced adhesive potential of fimH(+) isolates capable of phase switch (26 versus 46 bacteria/cell, P = 0.02). On the other hand, resident strains from IgA-deficient individuals displayed stronger mannose-resistant adherence than resident strains from control individuals (P = 0.04) and transient strains from IgA-deficient individuals (P = 0.01). The presence of S-IgA appears to favor the establishment of E. coli clones which readily express mannose-specific adhesins in the bowel microbiota