Dental caries is a widespread oral disease that is costly for health services to treat, and causes pain and loss of teeth to those affected. It is caused by production of acid by oral bacteria in biofilms on the teeth and gums commonly known as dental plaque. Brushing teeth can reduce this problem, but many people do not do so regularly or thoroughly. This project will investigate the application of bacterial replacement therapy in the form of a lozenge containing a suitable probiotic strain to help develop an anti-caries environment within the dental plaque biofilm. The project will combine the strengths of two UK SMEs, a world class culture collection centre and a leading probiotics manufacturer. The project will investigate strains held within the NCIMB culture collection for their potential to create novel biofilms to combat dental caries..

Probiotics are live microorganisms which when taken in adequate amounts confer health benefits. Changing diets and lifestyles have seen an increase in diet-related health conditions which probiotics acting as novel functional food ingredients can help. There are many probiotic species but the majority of commercial products are restricted to the Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium genera. This project will therefore examine the potential to increase the health benefits offered by microorganisms by exploring new genera for probiotic potential. The project brings together experience in previous research studies and in long term protection and storage of microorganisms. The project will combine the strengths of two UK SMEs, a world class culture collection centre, NCIMB Ltd, and a leading probiotic manufacturer, PIL, in their first collaborative R&D project together to explore the potential of introducing novel food supplement and functional food products.

This feasibility study will investigate the potential of transferring competency and methods developed for use in the oil industry for the determination of bacterial populations, to the production of renewable energy from wastes and other renewable sources using anaerobic digestion (AD) technology. Improved performance and lowering of associated risks in AD will contribute to improved energy security, management and storage of energy in the form of biogas. The study will be a new collaboration for NCIMB and ORA bringing together expertise in AD process technology together with molecular microbial monitoring to bring a new model for optimising process control and improve efficiencies of operation.

Microbial biofilms can cause significant economic and environmental issues in oilfield systems from reduction in flow rates, souring of crude oil and contribution to corrosion of concrete and metal surfaces. Current methods for the control of biofilms in these situations include the use of chemical biocides which are expensive and can lead to environmental contamination. This project will evaluate the application of bacteriophage as a natural alternative for biofilm control in oilfield systems. Although phage technology is not novel in itself its application it has not been used actively in industrial situations. This project will evaluate the application of phage technology for biocontrol for assets in the UK North Sea continental shelf.

In ARISTO (the European Industry - Academia Network for RevIsing and Advancing the Assessment of the Soil Microbial TOxicity of Pesticides), leading universities and industrial partners join forces to perform a cutting edge research and doctorate training programme tackling the global challenge of minimising the environmental off-target effects of pesticides. The multi-sectoral approach of ARISTO, interlinking disciplines from soil microbiology, microbial ecology, environmental chemistry and risk assessment, will generate the new generation of Microbial Ecotoxicologists specialized in pesticides-soil microbes interactions. The research challenge of ARISTO is to produce benchmarking knowledge supporting the development of advanced tools and procedures, based on the response of key microbial indicator groups like ammonia-oxidizing microorganisms (AOM) and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), for the comprehensive assessment of the toxicity of pesticides on soil microorganisms. ARISTO offers doctorate fellows a challenging training programme build along 5 research objectives: (1) to develop pioneering in vitro tests, as a first conservative step, to assess the toxicity of pesticides on distinct AOM (ESR1) and AMF (ESR2) strains (2) to develop advanced experimental lab and field tests to assess the toxicity of pesticides on natural soil assemblages of AOM (ESR3) and AMF (ESR4), as a more realistic toxicity assessment step (3) to develop an ecosystem-level toxicity assessment: identify the response of soil microbial networks to pesticides (ESR5) and explore the impact of pesticides on microorganisms from different trophic-levels within the soil food-web (predator - prey) (ESR6) (4) to develop novel tools and procedures to determine the soil microbial toxicity of pesticide mixtures (ESR7) and biopesticides (ESR8) (5) to develop & validate advanced in silico tools for prioritizing transformation products (TPs) of pesticides with potential toxicity to soil microbes (ESR9)