AWWA WQTC60636

The National Resources Council (NRC) has recently published the results of its analysisof US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) research and goals and recommended that it concentrate its energies formicrobiological protection of drinking water to Virulence Factor AssociatedRelationships, or VFAR. In summary, the NRC said that the USEPA should proceeddown a pathway similar to that used by the pharmaceutical industry to create newdrugs. For several years one process of new drug generation has centered onmolecular modeling. This process precludes the often haphazard means of classical drugdiscovery and can be considerably time and money saving. However, it dependson a detailed knowledge of the underlying pathogenesis of the disease and exact,or very close, information about the structure.Successful implementation of this chemical process also depends on a situationthat does not exit in microbiology, that the attachment of the drug to its receptoris static, and not mutable or induced. Unlike chemistry, microbiology is notstatic but dynamic. Virulence factors may not be naturally present when themicrobe is in the environment but only induced after they enter the host, andunder very specific microenvironmental circumstances (e.g., pH, salt, heat).These may be unknown, or difficult to reproduce in a laboratory setting.In 1991, Lye and Dufour analyzed a number of commonly acceptedextracellular enzyme virulence factors (e.g., protease, lipase, esterases) fromnaturally occurring HPC drinking water bacteria, and generally found them lacking. Virulence Factor Associated Relationships (VFAR) analysis is an attempt to broaden this strategy (it analyzes for a class ofvirulence factor rather and each individual in the class, some of which may not beknown) and to enhance the discovery of virulence factors within a class.NRC recommends that the USEPA proceed along the VFAR pathway. The USEPA, like allregulatory bodies of its type, actually has two charges: first, the development ofhealth risk assessment parameters by which regulations governing treatment andpathogen removal are generated, and the approval of tests (including thefrequency and volume of testing) of drinking water to protect the public health.

Product Details

Edition:

Vol. - No.

Published:

11/15/2004

Number of Pages:

4

File Size:

1 file , 180 KB