Your reusable water bottle may look clean, but what's really going on inside? Studies reveal a startling truth: reusable water bottles are teeming with bacteria. A study conducted in Singapore found that bacterial concentration in water jumped from 75,000 in the morning to over 2 million within a single day. Every time we take a sip, we unknowingly introduce bacteria into the bottle.

Contamination stems from three main sources:

• The water itself (even safe tap water contains microorganisms)
• Your mouth (home to 500-600 different bacterial species)
• Your hands and surroundings (bacteria clinging to the bottle)

The real risks

Bacteria multiply rapidly at room temperature and can include E. coli from poor hand hygiene, antibiotic-resistant strains, and biofilms – a slimy layer that lets bacteria flourish.

The problem worsens when bottles hold other drinks: protein shakes, juices, or tea, which experts call "a bacterial and fungal paradise."

Sharing bottles with others can spread viruses like norovirus, and bacteria harmless to one person might sicken another.

Cleaning that actually works

So, when was the last time you gave your bottle a proper wash instead of just rinsing it?

Experts recommend:

• Wash the bottle with hot water (above 60°C) and dish soap after each use.
• Soak it for 10 minutes.
• Air-dry it (bacteria hate dry environments).
• Scrub all parts, including the cap and straw.
• Wash your hands before handling the bottle.

A key warning: if your bottle starts to smell, it's time to toss it and get a new one.

Metal or plastic?

Experts say hygiene depends less on material and more on ease of cleaning, but there's another reason to favor metal or glass:

• Plastic contains chemical additives that leach into water
• BPA and other compounds may disrupt hormonal function
• Microplastic particles can get into the water

The takeaway is clear: that water bottle by your side all day could be a bacterial trap. Thorough, regular cleaning is the only way to ensure you're drinking just water – not millions of germs along with it.

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Researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Shamoon College of Engineering and Afeka Tel Aviv Academic College of Engineering have developed an innovative method for the rapid determination of the identity and antibiotic sensitivity of bacterial pathogens in urinary tract infections (UTI) in patients, BGN Technologies – the university' technology transfer company – announced Tuesday.

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The novel method enables detection of bacterial pathogens directly from urine samples in 30-40 minutes. The technology combines measurements of the infrared spectrum of the infecting bacteria with machine learning algorithms, to enable the simultaneous determination of both bacterial type at the species level and bacterial sensitivity to antibiotics.

The method has been tested on over 1,000 urine samples and was able to discriminate between bacterial species with approximately 97% accuracy and determine bacterial susceptibility to various antibiotics with approximately 85% accuracy.

If left untreated or treated with ineffective antibiotics, UTIs can lead to complications such as permanent kidney damage and blood contamination. UTIs affect over 150 million people annually around the globe and is the most common outpatient infection in the US. In hospitals, UTIs account for 40% of all hospital-acquired infections

The inventors of the new method include Professors Mahmoud Huleihel and Shraga Segal, both from the Dept. of Microbiology, Immunology and Genetics, Faculty of Health Science at BGU; Prof. Ahmad Salman from Shamoon College of Engineering and Dr Itshak Lapidot from Afeka Tel Aviv Academic College of Engineering. BGN Technologies, the technology transfer company of BGU, has filed for patent protection and is now seeking a strategic partner for the further development and commercialization of this promising technology.

Huleihel, said, "The new technology offers a novel clinical decision-support tool for early and precise antibiotic recommendations, that will result in effective treatment. More broadly, our invention is timely, given the global emerging threat of antimicrobial resistance."

"This method for the identification of bacterial pathogens in UTI patients is an important and long-awaited solution for the management of UTI," said BGN Technologies CEO Josh Peleg.

"Currently, identification of the bacterial pathogen and its antibiotics sensitivity is labor intensive and can take up to three days, leading to treatment delays and potential complications. This novel solution can supply medical staff with results within 1 hour after collecting a urine sample, with very high accuracy and minimal effort. We are confident that this method has the potential to become a mainstay in hospitals and outpatient clinics alike," Peleg added.

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Researchers from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev have developed a new method to combat the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, the university announced Monday.

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Before the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, one of the most serious concerns in the medical community was antibiotic resistance, which occurs when bacteria develop the ability to defeat the drugs designed to kill them.

According to the World Health Organization, "a growing list of infections – such as pneumonia, tuberculosis, blood poisoning, gonorrhoea, and foodborne diseases – are becoming harder, and sometimes impossible, to treat as antibiotics become less effective."

BGU researchers, along with colleagues from the United States and Germany, have developed "molecular tweezers" that can damage the pathogenic bacteria's biofilm, a thin layer of fibers that protects it, and prevent the bacteria's spread and toxicity.

The process does not attack the bacteria directly and, therefore, they cannot develop a resistance to the technology.

"In the research that lasted more than three years, we succeeded in preventing biofilm formation by using molecular tweezers," BGU's Dr. Ravit Malishev said. "This breakthrough may pave the way for new methods in fighting antibiotic-resistant bacteria."

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Cancer immunotherapy may get a boost from an unexpected direction: bacteria residing within tumor cells. In a new study published in Nature, researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science and their collaborators have discovered that the immune system "sees" these bacteria and shown they can be harnessed to provoke an immune reaction against the tumor. The study may also help clarify the connection between immunotherapy and the gut microbiome, explaining the findings of previous research that the microbiome affects the success of immunotherapy.

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Immunotherapy treatments of the past decade or so have dramatically improved recovery rates from certain cancers, particularly malignant melanoma; but in melanoma, they still work in only about 40% of the cases. Prof. Yardena Samuels of Weizmann's Molecular Cell Biology Department studies molecular "signposts" – protein fragments, or peptides, on the cell surface – that mark cancer cells as foreign and may therefore serve as potential added targets for immunotherapy. In the new study, she and colleagues extended their search for new cancer signposts to those bacteria known to colonize tumors.

Using methods developed by departmental colleague Dr. Ravid Straussman, who was one of the first to reveal the nature of the bacterial "guests" in cancer cells, Samuels and her team, led by Dr. Shelly Kalaora and Adi Nagler (joint co-first authors), analyzed tissue samples from 17 metastatic melanoma tumors derived from nine patients. They obtained bacterial genomic profiles of these tumors and then applied an approach known as HLA-peptidomics to identify tumor peptides that can be recognized by the immune system.

The research was conducted in collaboration with Dr. Jennifer A. Wargo of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas; Prof Scott N. Peterson of Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute, La Jolla, California; Prof Eytan Ruppin of the National Cancer Institute, USA; Prof Arie Admon of the Technion- Israel Institute of Technology and other scientists.

The HLA peptidomics analysis revealed nearly 300 peptides from 41 different bacteria on the surface of the melanoma cells. The crucial new finding was that the peptides were displayed on the cancer cell surfaces by HLA protein complexes – complexes that are present on the membranes of all cells in our body and play a role in regulating the immune response. One of the HLA's jobs is to sound an alarm about anything that is foreign by "presenting" foreign peptides to the immune system so that immune T cells can "see" them. "Using HLA peptidomics, we were able to reveal the HLA-presented peptides of the tumor in an unbiased manner," Kalaora says. "This method has already enabled us in the past to identify tumor antigens that have shown promising results in clinical trials."

It's unclear why cancer cells should perform a seemingly suicidal act of this sort: presenting bacterial peptides to the immune system, which can respond by destroying these cells. But whatever the reason, the fact that malignant cells do display these peptides in such a manner reveals an entirely new type of interaction between the immune system and the tumor.

This revelation supplies a potential explanation for how the gut microbiome affects immunotherapy. Some of the bacteria the team identified were known gut microbes. The presentation of the bacterial peptides on the surface of tumor cells is likely to play a role in the immune response, and future studies may establish which bacterial peptides enhance that immune response, enabling physicians to predict the success of immunotherapy and to tailor a personalized treatment accordingly.

Moreover, the fact that bacterial peptides on tumor cells are visible to the immune system can be exploited for enhancing immunotherapy. "Many of these peptides were shared by different metastases from the same patient or by tumors from different patients, which suggests that they have a therapeutic potential and a potent ability to produce immune activation," Nagler says.

In a series of continuing experiments, Samuels and colleagues incubated T cells from melanoma patients in a laboratory dish together with bacterial peptides derived from tumor cells of the same patient. The result: T cells were activated specifically toward the bacterial peptides.

"Our findings suggest that bacterial peptides presented on tumor cells can serve as potential targets for immunotherapy," Samuels said. "They may be exploited to help immune T cells recognize the tumor with greater precision, so that these cells can mount a better attack against the cancer. This approach can in the future be used in combination with existing immunotherapy drugs."

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BGN Technologies, the technology transfer company of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, has signed a research collaboration agreement with Portugal's ECOIBÉRIA in the field of plastic recycling by bacteria, the university announced Wednesday.

The project is based on research by Professor Ariel Kushmaro and ProfessorAlex Sivan, both from the Laboratory of Environmental Biotechnology and Avram and Stella Goldstein-Goren Department of Biotechnology Engineering at BGU.

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Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is the most abundantly used polymer in the world, with multiple applications in the textile industry as well as in food and beverage packaging. An estimated 56 million tons of PET are produced yearly worldwide, mostly as single-use packaging.

Kushmaro, Sivan and their team have been studying plastic biodegradation and have discovered several bacteria species that are able to biodegrade polyethylene, which was previously considered a non-biodegradable plastic.

Based on these findings, the research collaboration project will assess PET biodegradation by previously identified bacteria as well as novel ones, with the aim of developing an efficient biodegradation process of PET. Byproducts of the process would be used to make recycled PET.

Products that contain plastic are cone of the "biggest environmental challenges facing modern society," Kushmaro said, calling bacterial degradation of PET into recyclable materials a "promising strategy that can have a global environmental and economic impact."

ECOIBÉRIA CEO Jorge Lemos said that his company's mission was to guarantee the sustainability of the production and consumption models and "assist in the transition from the linear economy to the circular economy."

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The study was published in Nature Medicine this week and was the product of a collaboration between Professor Varda Shalev, who is the head of the Kahn-Sagol-Maccabi Research and Innovation Institute and Technion researchers Professor Roy Kishony and Dr. Idan Yelin.

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One of the challenges modern medicine faces is coping with bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics. It is estimated that some 3,000 to 5,000 Israelis die each year in hospitals after being infected by antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

The overuse of antibiotics can also lead to bacteria developing new resistance to antibiotics, and lose their effectivity. One way to prevent the development of resistant bacteria is to reduce the repetitive use of antibiotics in medical treatments. Infections caused by antibiotic overuse may not only develop resistance but may become "treatment-resistant and deadly," the study said.

By using artificial intelligence along with patient data, scientists would be able to engineer specific antibiotics, catering them to each patient's needs.

"It is now possible to computationally predict the level of bacterial resistance for infection-causing bacteria," Yelin said. "This is done by weighing of demographic data, including age, gender, pregnancy … together with levels of resistance [which are] measured in the patient's previous urine cultures as well as their drug purchase history."

This unique breakthrough in Israeli medicine will also pave the way for additional artificial intelligence use in medical fields.

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