|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Chauret featured in IU halftime program
December 11, 2003 | |||||
KOKOMO, Ind.— Associate Professor of Microbiology at IU Kokomo Christian Chauret, Ph.D., will be featured in a halftime program being broadcast during the Saturday, December 13, IU men’s basketball game against Butler University. The game can be seen on ESPN Plus, starting at 2 p.m.
Chauret was one of several Indiana University faculty members chosen for the university-produced halftime special, which focuses on how IU faculty research and outreach programs make life better for Hoosiers. The program notes that Chauret helped protect the drinking water supply for the City of Muncie, by collaborating with the Indiana-American Water Company in a 1998–99 study. The study was designed to document the presence of a water-borne pathogen in a typical municipal water distribution system. The bacterium Aeromonas hydrophila had been detected in the White River in Muncie, a source of drinking water for the city, Chauret said. Aeromonas commonly occurs in surface waters that supply municipal drinking water systems. It has been linked to diarrhea and infections in humans. In the United States, most community water distribution systems are disinfected with either chlorine or chloramines, a nitrogen and chlorine compound, to prevent Aeromonas contamination. Because of such prevention, “limited data on Aeromonas occurrence in drinking water are available in the United States (as opposed to Europe),” Chauret said. His study indicated that the disinfection steps taken in Muncie worked for the most part. “Aeromonas was never detected in the treatment plant effluent or distributed bulk water,” he said. However, the bacteria were found in a small sampling of “biofilm,” a slimy layer of microbial growth on the surface of the system’s pipes. This suggested potential for regrowth and later contamination, according to Chauret. The study was published in 2001 in the Canadian Journal of Microbiology. IU Kokomo student Robin Creason of Russiaville assisted Chauret in his study, under a grant from the IU Undergraduate Research Summer Institute program. After December 13, Chauret’s halftime program appearance can be viewed at www.broadcast.iu.edu.
|
|
||||