

Rachel Defends Her MSc
Congratulations to Rachel Courtice on her defense! Rachel's graduate research focused on the emergence of antimicrobial resistance in E. coli and Staphylococcus pseudintermedius causing canine urinary tract infections over a 4 year period. For the most part Rachel's results are a good news story, resistance is still remarkably rare in our region; but she did identify a number of ESBL producing E. coli and even strain belonging to ST131 which possessed the aac6-Ib-cr quinolone


Are Therapy Dogs a Zoonotic Risk?
As the human animal bond is increasingly recognized to contribute to people’s wellbeing, the therapeutic role of companion animals is increasingly exploited in healthcare, long term care and community settings. But… concerns related to theoretical zoonotic risks associated with dogs in health care settings often limit the therapy dog visits. Today Bev presented some of her post-doctoral work exploring the frequency of carriage of microbial hazards among therapy dogs in Saskat


CBC Marketplace Enlists theRubinlab
Communicating science is a critical part of what we do as faculty members, whether it’s to our students in the class room or through public outreach. So when CBC Marketplace got in touch about helping them with a story about antibiotic resistant bacteria in shrimp how could I say no? Since this is CBC’s story to tell, follow the link to learn more about what we found. Updates or additional coverage the story receives will also be posted here. Episode preview here Read the CBC


CACMID 2018 Kicks off Conference Season
Last week Yenuki Rajapaksha (Rubin lab summer student alumni, and future dentistry student), had the opportunity to attend the annual CACMID conference in Vancouver. CACMID (Canadian Association for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases) is always a great opportunity to interact with physicians, diagnostic microbiologists and infectious disease specialists and learn about the latest advances in human infectious diseases. This year we presented the results of two colla


Engaging the Public with Plate Art
Who says Microbiology is boring? The RubinLab’s own Dongyun Jung has put together some plate art for display at Vetavision 2017, the WCVM’s triannual open house. Dongyun has used Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Escherichia coli in his latest works which are proudly displayed in the “Germs, Worms and Toxins” booth – stop by and a vet student will be happy to give you the run down on these bacteria that can be beautiful and dangerous at the same time… just don’t forget to wash your


Is Parvoviral Diarrhea all About Parvo?
Last week, Dr. M. Casey Gaunt and I had the opportunity to present the results of a long running study aiming to describe co-infections with bacterial and parasitic pathogens in puppies with parvoviral enteritis. It was a lovely week to attend the 2017 Congress of the European College of Veterinary Internal Medicine (Companion Animals) in St. Julian’s, Malta. Our study began after seeing a string of cases of dogs affected with attaching and effacing E. coli with clinical sign


Do Chickens in Small Flocks Harbour Superbugs?
I’m pleased to announce the first paper to come out of a collaborative project between theRubinlab and researchers at the University of Guelph, the Public Health Agency of Canada and the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. This manuscript includes the work of Lindsey Lebert, a newly graduated MSc student from the McEwen lab at the University of Guelph and is entitled “Prevalence and antimicrobial resistance among Escherichia coli and Salmonella in Ontario


Congratulations Kazal - theRubinlab's First Alum!
Congratulations to Kazal for successfully defending his MSc thesis entitled "Antimicrobial resistance and molecular characterization of Escherichia coli isolated from Ontario chickens"! Kazal joined the group in January 2015, and is now officially the first Rubin lab alumnus - it's a very big day for us all. Thanks to Drs. Janet Hill and Jenny Fricke for participation in Kazal's graduate advisory committee and Dr. Aaron White for serving as external examiner. Kazal is now wor


Welcome to Yenuki Rajapaksha, 2017 Rubin Lab Summer Student
Welcome to Yenuki Rajapaksha who's joined the Rubin lab as a summer student! Yenuki has recently completed her 3rd year in the Pharmacology and Physiology program at the U of S. This summer Yenuki will be working to identifying and characterize extended-spectrum beta-lactamase producing E. coli in two projects targeting 1. wild crows from the Saskatoon region and 2. dogs with cancer. These studies are collaborative projects with Drs. Dennilyn Parker (wildlife and exotics spec


Fosfomycin Resistance in Canine Uropathogens?
This week, Rachel had the chance to present her research entitled: “Fosfomycin Resistant Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus pseudintermedius Isolated from Canine Urinary Tract Infections in Western Canada” at CACMID 2017 in Toronto. We were really excited to see a study describing the fosfomycin susceptibility of human urinary isolates; it turns out that resistance is (fortunately) uncommon whether the bugs are infecting people or dogs! This was the third time Rubin lab memb