Manju Varma

TL;DR: Evidence is provided that the commonly used practices of enumerating Aspergillus and Penicillium as a single group or only by genus can be misleading in understanding the indoor populations of these organisms and their potential health risks.

TL;DR: The new TaqMan HF183/BacR287 assay should provide more accurate estimations of human-derived fecal contaminants in ambient surface waters.

TL;DR: Analysis for multiple individual Bacteroidales species may be useful in identifying human fecal pollution in environmental waters, as suggested by results of this study.

TL;DR: Qualitative PCR assays for quantification of two recently described human-specific genetic markers targeting Bacteroidales-like cell surface-associated genes are reported, providing experimental evidence supporting the potential application of these quantitative methods for monitoring fecal pollution in ambient environmental waters.

TL;DR: Reductions of PMA-qPCR as well as total qPCR detectable target sequences from enterococci and, to a lesser extent, Bacteroidales correlated well with reductions in infectious viruses during both normal and storm flow operating conditions and therefore may have predictive value in determining the efficiency at which these pathogens are removed.