How best to approach ecotoxicity testing for offshore oil and gas sector decommissioning?

Our Analytical Services Manager Michelle Robertson is looking forward to presenting at the 3rd International Conference on the Decommissioning of Offshore & Subsea Structures on 22 February. She will be talking about NCIMB’s MARA and LumiMARA ecotoxicity tests and their potential for use during the decommissioning process.Environmental impact assessment is an important consideration with respect to decommissioning of offshore production facilities, and a risk-based whole effluent assessment (WEA) approach would be well suited to this purpose, as offshore structures often contain accumulations of historical waste that are a complex mix of …

NCIMB achieves living wage accreditation

NCIMB is now an accredited as a living wage employer. The real Living Wage is calculated according to the costs of living and provides a voluntary benchmark for employers that wish to ensure their staff earn a wage they can live on. It seems like now it is more important than ever to support this initiative, which benefits businesses as well as their employees.

NCIMB is delighted to be a sponsor of the Microbiology Society Annual Conference

NCIMB is delighted to be a sponsor of the Microbiology Society Annual Conference 2022. The event will return to an in-person format this year and will be held in Belfast at the International Convention Centre from 4 – 7 April. More information about the conference programme, and what the organisers are doing to make it as safe as possible can be found here: https://microbiologysociety.org/event/annual-conference/annual-conference-2022.html

Comparing and differentiating closely related strains of bacteria

Strain comparison and differentiation can be valuable in a range of circumstances. NCIMB’s Identification Services Manager, Vikki Warren takes a look at recent developments in the methods available for doing this and why whole genome sequencing is NCIMB’s preferred approach. Environmental monitoring is an important part of quality control in pharmaceutical manufacturing environments. When it comes to investigating incursions or process contaminants, comparing them to previous isolates and tracing their source, strain comparison and differentiation can provide valuable information over and above species level identification. If several different strains are …

Vacancy: Molecular Scientist

We are recruiting a molecular scientist to join our busy sequencing team, which provides a cGMP microbial identification and next generation sequencing service to external clients. The ideal candidate will be educated to BSc or MSc level in microbiology or another biological discipline, with some laboratory experience in a commercial setting. Experience of DNA extraction, PCR, sequencing and bioinformatics would be an advantage, as would experience of working in an ISO9001 or cGMP environment. Responsibilities and duties of the post include: Co-operating in the efficient running of the identification service …

Two novel actinomycete species added to the National Collection of Industrial, Food and Marine Bacteria

Two novel actinomycete species1, isolated from Southern Ocean sediment, have been added to the NCIMB culture collection by researchers from the University of Strathclyde. The microbiology of Polar environments, which are vulnerable to global climate change, is vastly underexplored in terms of biomedical potential.  Furthermore, actinomycetes are well known for their specialised metabolite production, accounting for over 45% of all bioactive microbial metabolites. We are delighted to add Pseudonocardia abyssalis sp. nov. NCIMB 15270 and Pseudonocardia oceani sp. nov. NCIMB 15269. to our collection as they have been found to exhibit both …