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<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Do Seas Make Us Sick? Surfers May Have the Answer</span><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:#0000CC"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:#0000CC"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span class="byline"><span lang="EN">By </span></span><span class="byline-author"><span lang="EN">PETER ANDREY SMITH
</span></span><span lang="EN">APRIL 3, 2017</span><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:#0000CC"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:#0000CC"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:#0000CC"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/03/science/surfers-antibiotic-resistant-bacteria.html?emc=edit_th_20170404&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=61599588&_r=0">https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/03/science/surfers-antibiotic-resistant-bacteria.html?emc=edit_th_20170404&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=61599588&_r=0</a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:#0000CC"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt">Photo <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><img border="0" width="537" height="358" id="Picture_x0020_1" src="cid:image002.jpg@01D2AD26.D6F07110" alt="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2017/04/04/science/04SURFER1/04SURFER1-superJumbo.jpg"></span><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt">Cliff Kapono at Black’s Beach, a popular surf spot in La Jolla, Calif. Credit Ariana Drehsler for The New York Times
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt">LA JOLLA, Calif. — On a recent trip, Cliff Kapono hit some of the more popular surf breaks in Ireland, England and Morocco. He’s proudly
Native Hawaiian and no stranger to the hunt for the perfect wave. But this time he was chasing something even more unusual: microbial swabs from fellow surfers.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt">Mr. Kapono, a 29-year-old biochemist earning his doctorate at the University of California, San Diego, heads up the Surfer Biome Project,
a unique effort to determine whether routine exposure to the ocean alters the microbial communities of the body, and whether those alterations might have consequences for surfers — and for the rest of us.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt">Mr. Kapono has collected more than 500 samples by rubbing cotton-tipped swabs over the heads, mouths, navels and other parts of surfers’
bodies, as well as their boards. Volunteers also donate a fecal sample.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt">He uses mass spectrometry to create high-resolution maps of the chemical metabolites found in each sample. “We have the ability to see the
molecular world, whether it’s bacteria or a fungus or the chemical molecules,” he said.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt">Then, working in collaboration with U.C.S.D.’s Center for Microbiome Innovation — a quick jaunt across the quad from his lab — Mr. Kapono
and his colleagues sequence and map the microbes found on this unusually amphibious demographic.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt">He and his colleagues are looking for signs of
<a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopics/antibiotics/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="Recent and archival health news about antibiotics.">
<span style="color:blue">antibiotic</span></a>-resistant organisms. Part of their aim is to determine whether, and to what extent, the ocean spreads the genes for resistance.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt">Many antibiotics used today derive from chemicals produced by microbes to defend themselves or to attack other microorganisms. No surprise,
then, that strains of competing bacteria have also evolved the genetic means to shrug off these chemicals.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt">Photo <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><img border="0" width="376" height="251" id="Picture_x0020_2" src="cid:image004.jpg@01D2AD26.D6F07110" alt="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2017/04/04/science/04SURFER3/04SURFER3-master675.jpg"></span><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt">Samples collected from different parts of the bodies such as feet, hand, nose, ears, mouth, navel and eyes. Credit Ariana Drehsler for The New York Times
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt">While drug resistance comes about because of antibiotic overuse, the genes responsible for creating resistance are widely disseminated in
nature and have been evolving in microbes for eons. Startlingly, that means genes giving rise to drug resistance can be found in places untouched by modern antibiotics.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt">Several years ago, researchers identified antibiotic-resistant genes in a sample of ancient permafrost from Nunavut, in the Canadian Arctic.
William Hanage, an epidemiologist at the Harvard School of Public Health, was among those showing
<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0069533"><span style="color:blue">that these genes conferred a resistance to amikacin, a semi-synthetic drug that did not exist before the 1970s</span></a>.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt">“There was a gene that encoded resistance to it in something that was alive 6,000 years ago,” he said in an interview.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt">Another group led by Hazel Barton, a microbiologist at the University of Akron, discovered microorganisms harboring antibiotic-resistance
genes in the Lechuguilla Cave in New Mexico. These bacteria, called Paenibacillus sp. LC231, have been isolated from Earth’s surface for four million years, yet testing showed they were capable of fending off
<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms13803"><span style="color:blue">26 of 40 modern antibiotics</span></a>.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt"><a href="http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/3/e1500183"><span style="color:blue">Sixty different resistance genes were found in bacteria
carried by the Yanomami</span></a>, an indigenous group in the Amazon, in one village thought to have been isolated until researchers visited in 2009.
<a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0138135">
<span style="color:blue">Resistance has also been identified in mummified human remains dating to the 11th century</span></a>.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt">These genes are not just pervasive in nature — they are also being passed around in unexpected ways.
<a href="https://microbiomejournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40168-016-0199-5">
<span style="color:blue">An abundance of resistance genes has been found in bacteria floating in Beijing’s smog</span></a>. A survey of developing countries identified chicken coops and urban wastewater treatment facilities
<a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v533/n7602/full/nature17672.html"><span style="color:blue">as potential “hot spots” for the swapping of resistance genes</span></a>.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt">The ocean, home to an incredible diversity of dissolved chemistry, also acts as a reservoir for these genes, and researchers are trying
to figure out if they move from the seas into the human population. So who better to study than surfers?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt">“A lot of the research of the transmission of resistant bacteria has focused on the role of the health care environment,” said Anne Leonard,
an environmental epidemiologist at the University of Exeter who is investigating whether surfers have higher rates of bacterial colonization. “What’s less well studied is the role that natural environments play.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt">Photo <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><img border="0" width="581" height="387" id="Picture_x0020_3" src="cid:image006.jpg@01D2AD26.D6F07110" alt="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2017/04/04/science/04SURFER2/04SURFER2-superJumbo.jpg"></span><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt">Mr. Kapono in the lab at the University of California, San Diego. Credit Ariana Drehsler for The New York Times
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt">By some estimates, surfers can swallow about 170 milliliters, or five and three-quarters ounces, of seawater per session. Dr. Leonard and
William Gaze, of the European Center for Environment and Human Health, and his colleagues have
<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.envint.2015.02.013"><span style="color:blue">estimated</span></a> that recreational swimmers and surfers in England and Wales may be exposed to resistant strains of E. coli in the ocean on more than six million occasions
each year.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt">Because bacteria readily pick up and pass on genetic information across species, researchers suspect the risks of acquiring resistant genes
are higher in places that facilitate direct transfer with microbes inhabiting the body. Coastal waters polluted with sewage, in this view, are probably more worrisome than smog or deep caves.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt">At the moment, no one is sure whether it is actually possible for people to pick up these microbial genes from a long day at the beach.
In the lab, however, Mr. Kapono has found evidence for the transfer of resistance genes from bacteria in the ocean into strains associated with the human gut when they are placed in proximity.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt">Evolutionary pressures favored the emergence of resistant genes. Microbes are drawing upon this natural bank of resistance today to fend
off the best drugs devised by humans.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt">“These antibiotic resistance genes did not arise in order to make our lives awkward,” Dr. Hanage said. “They have completely different functions
that only have recently been repurposed.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt">“These things are everywhere,” he added. “If we want to stop them from moving into pathogens that are killing us, we need to understand
where they are.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt">Back in California, Mr. Kapono has begun analyzing the data from his globe-trotting quest. So far, neither he nor his collaborators have
found evidence that swimmers or surfers are picking up antibiotic-resistant infections from the ocean.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt">But Mr. Kapono noticed in his preliminary data that certain metabolites from his body came to resemble those of other local surfers as he
moved from region to region. That could be a result of commonalities in diet or lifestyle — or it could be evidence that immersing our bodies in saline, microbe-rich environments has a detectable biochemical impact.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt">Mr. Kapono has taken samples from surfers in California and Hawaii; surfers in the South Pacific are next. He is mulling a trip to Chile
to conduct field work at Punta de Lobos. The rural location may yield some unique microbes.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:#0000CC"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:#0000CC"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;color:#000099">Deborah L. DeBiasi<br>
<b>Email: <a href="mailto:Deborah.DeBiasi@deq.virginia.gov"><span style="color:#000099">Deborah.DeBiasi@deq.virginia.gov</span></a><i><br>
</i></b>WEB site address: <a href="http://www.deq.virginia.gov/"><span style="color:#000099">www.deq.virginia.gov</span></a><br>
Virginia Department of Environmental Quality<br>
Office of Water Permits <br>
Industrial Pretreatment/Whole Effluent Toxicity (WET) Program<br>
PPCPs, EDCs, and Microconstituents<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;color:#000099"><a href="http://www.deq.virginia.gov/Programs/Water/PermittingCompliance/PollutionDischargeElimination/Microconstituents.aspx"><span style="color:#000099">http://www.deq.virginia.gov/Programs/Water/PermittingCompliance/PollutionDischargeElimination/Microconstituents.aspx</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;color:#000099">Mail: P.O. Box 1105, Richmond, VA 23218<br>
Location: 629 E. Main Street, Richmond, VA 23219<br>
PH: 804-698-4028 FAX: 804-698-4032</span><span style="font-size:9.0pt;color:navy"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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