James Ebdon

• PhD, MSc, BEng
• Professor (Full) at University of Brighton

Inappropriate or poorly constructed sanitation is becoming one of the major challenges confronting rapidly urbanizing cities in the global south such as Ethiopia. This study was carried out to understand the sanitation and solid waste management challenges present in the city of Mekelle, in order to identify opportunities for sustainable faecal and...

This chapter outlines some of the impacts that diffuse pollution inputs can have on water quality and introduces some of the waterborne microbial contaminants and emerging pollutants of human and/or environmental health significance. The chapter also highlights some of the challenges associated with successfully identifying and mitigating diffuse s...

Sewage pollution leads to the contamination of bivalve shellfish by pathogenic microorganisms. Bacterial indicators support the management of risks associated with the consumption of shellfish; however, they often fail to indicate adequately the potential hazard to human health posed by certain human enteric viruses. Bacteriophages have been propos...

Phages, such as those infecting Bacteroides spp., have been proven to be reliable indicators of human fecal contamination in microbial source tracking (MST) studies, and the efficacy of these MST markers found to vary geographically. This study reports the application and evaluation of candidate MST methods (phages infecting previously isolated B....

It is currently predicted that rivers deliver as much as 80% of plastic waste into the marine environment, including microplastics (MP) <5 mm in size. Yet, the transfer mechanisms of MP in river systems remain poorly understood. While high flow events are thought to flush more microplastics into marine waters, their overall load may depend on facto...

Determining the source of fecal contamination in a water body is important for the application of appropriate remediation measures. However, it has been suggested in the extant literature that this can best be achieved using a ‘toolbox’ of molecular- and culture-based methods. In response, this study deployed three indicators (Escherichia coli (EC)...

Spatio-temporal variations in MP accumulation in the R. Thames Catchment sediments Presented at the Plastics in the Environment conference (online) organised by the Geological Society

Microplastics (synthetic polymer particles <5 mm in size) are currently of major research interest due to their ubiquity and persistence in the environment, as well as their alleged adverse impact on aquatic biota. Although most research to date has targeted microplastic pollution within the marine environment, riverine pathways deliver up to 80 %...

Bacteroides spp. are part of the human intestinal microbiota but can under some circumstances become clinical pathogens. Phages are a potentially valuable therapeutic treatment option for many pathogens, but phage therapy for pathogenic Bacteroides spp. including Bacteroides fragilis is currently limited to three genome-sequenced phages. Here we de...

Bacteroides spp. are part of the human intestinal microbiota but can under some circumstances become clinical pathogens. Phages are a potentially valuable therapeutic treatment option for many pathogens, but phage therapy for pathogenic Bacteroides spp. including Bacteroides fragilis is currently limited to three genome-sequenced phages. Here we de...

Background: Emerging evidence suggests close domestic proximity of livestock and humans may lead to microbiological contamination of hands, objects, food and water supplies within domestic environments, adversely impacting public health. However, evidence quantifying the relationship between livestock, domestic animals, humans and microbiological...

Initial findings of my PhD project from March 2020 (microplastic concentrations found in the Thames Catchment sediments).

Water deficit, exacerbated by global population increases and climate change, necessitates the investigation of alternative non-traditional water sources to augment existing supplies. Indirect potable reuse (IPR) represents a promising alternative water source in water-stressed regions. Of high concern is the presence of pathogenic microorganisms i...

Up to 80% of the plastics in the oceans are believed to have been transferred from river networks. Microplastic contamination of river sediments has been found to be pervasive at the global scale and responsive to periods of flooding. However, the physical controls governing the storage, remobilization and pathways of transfer in fluvial sediments...

Background: Water scarcity combined with high incidences of diarrhoeal disease amongst many rural communities, suggests that the provision of 'safe' water supplies remains a challenge. Subsequent reliance on multi-source water supplies means that microbial transmission pathways may be numerous and complex. Objectives: This study aimed to identif...

Containment, safe handling and disinfection of human excreta in cholera treatment centers (CTC) are key to preventing the onward spread of the disease. This study compared the efficacy of three chlorine-based approaches at concentrations of 0.5%, 1%, and 2% and one hydrated lime-based (Ca(OH)2 at 30% w:v) approach. Experiments followed existing Méd...

The presence of waterborne microbial (including viral) pathogens, in wastewater poses a potential risk to human health when wastewaters are reused either directly or indirectly. Therefore, reuse activities need to be regulated in such a way as to protect human health and to this end, quantitative microbial risk assessment (QMRA) has been successful...

Ebola and cholera treatment centres (ETC and CTC) generate considerable quantities of excreta that can further the transmission of disease amongst patients and health workers. Therefore, approaches for the safe handling, containment and removal of excreta within such settings are needed to minimise the likelihood of onward disease transmission. Thi...

Numerous bacterial genetic markers are available for the molecular detection of human sources of fecal pollution in environmental waters. However, widespread application is hindered by a lack of knowledge regarding geographical stability, limiting implementation to a small number of well-characterized regions. This study investigates the geographic...

Aim: The aim of this study was to determine the morphological diversity and environmental survival of human-specific phages infecting Enterococcus faecium host strain MW47, to support their use as microbial source tracking (MST) markers. Methods and results: Twenty phages capable of infecting strain MW47 were propagated and their morphologies de...

Just as the expansion in genome sequencing has revealed and permitted the exploitation of phylogenetic signals embedded in bacterial genomes, the application of metagenomics has begun to provide similar insights at the ecosystem level for microbial communities. However, little is known regarding this aspect of bacteriophage associated with microbia...

Many wastewater treatment technologies have been shown to remove bacterial pathogens more effectively than viral pathogens and, in aquatic environments, levels of traditional faecal indicator bacteria (FIB) do not appear to correlate consistently with levels of human viral pathogens. There is, therefore, a need for novel viral indicators of faecal...

The existence of faecal contamination in environmental waters constitutes a potential threat to human health. Determining sources of faecal contamination is paramount in assessing associated health risks and implementing remediation measures. Traditional indicators are able to detect faecal contamination but they are unable to determine its origin....

Aim: This study set out to determine whether phage-based indicators may provide a 'low-tech' alternative to existing approaches that might help maintain the microbial safety of shellfish and their overlying waters. Methods and results: Mussels and their overlying waters were collected biweekly from an estuary in southeast England over a two-year...

This study investigated the response of two shellfish species − mussels (Mytilus edulis) and oysters (Crassostrea gigas) to microbial contamination in order to gain a better understanding of the bioaccumulation and persistence of microorganisms under controlled conditions. M. edulis and C. gigas were placed in sterile laboratory-prepared artificial...

The aim of this study was to demonstrate how seasonal variability in the removal efficacy of enteric viral pathogens from an MBR-based water recycling system might affect risks to human health if the treated product were to be used for the augmentation of potable water supplies. Samples were taken over a twelve month period (March 2014-February 201...

Various NGO guidelines suggest that human excreta may be disinfected by the application of concentrated (e.g., 0.5%) chlorine solutions. However, chlorine-based disinfectants are thought to rapidly lose their bactericidal and virucidal properties in contact with high levels of organic matter and chlorine application results in the production of tox...

The operation of a health care facility, such as a cholera or Ebola treatment center in an emergency setting, results in the production of pathogen-laden wastewaters that may potentially lead to onward transmission of the disease. The research presented here evaluated the design and operation of a novel treatment system, successfully used by Médeci...

This study proposes that calculating and interpreting removal coefficients (K20) for bacteriophages in activated sludge (AS) and trickling filter (TF) systems using stochastic modelling may provide important information that may be used to estimate the removal of phages in such systems using simplified models. In order to achieve this, 14 samples o...

AIMS Improvements in water quality in response to stricter EU legislation have led to significant investment in new wastewater treatment plants (WwTP) with enhanced treatment capabilities in Europe in recent years. In urban areas, the main source of faecal pollution is partially treated wastewater discharges from municipal WwTW. However, such impro...

The aim of this study was to assess the potential removal efficacy of viruses in a full-scale membrane bioreactor (MBR) wastewater reuse system, using a range of indigenous and ‘spiked’ bacteriophages (phages) of known size and morphology. Samples were taken each week for three months from nine locations at each treatment stage of the water recycli...

Bacteriophages are viruses living in bacteria that can be used as a tool to detect fecal contamination in surface waters around the world. However, the lack of a universal host strain makes them unsuitable for tracking fecal sources. We evaluated the suitability of two newly isolated Enterococcus host strains (ENT-49 and ENT-55) capable for identif...

Introduction: Shellfish are filter-feeding aquatic animals that can bioaccumulate pathogens from contaminated water, thereby posing a potential risk of infection to human consumers. Therefore, the prevention of these infections is of significant public health importance. An environmental study was carried out to investigate the seasonality of bioac...

UV-B radiation (280-320 nm) has long been associated with the inactivation of micro-organisms in the natural environment. Determination of the environmental inactivation kinetics of specific indicator organisms [used as tools in the field of microbial source tracking (MST)] is fundamental to their successful deployment, particularly in geographical...

Bacterial viruses (bacteriophages) have a key role in shaping the development and functional outputs of host microbiomes. Although metagenomic approaches have greatly expanded our understanding of the prokaryotic virosphere, additional tools are required for the phage-oriented dissection of metagenomic data sets, and host-range affiliation of recov...

The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) was evaluated while modeling daily stream flow in Limnatis basin, Cyprus over a period of seven years. Stream flow data from 2006-2008 were used as a warm up period, the period 2008- 2010 was used to calibrate the model and stream flow, data from 2008-2012 were used for the validation. The model could adequ...

Numerous quantitative PCR assays for microbial fecal source tracking (MST) have been developed and evaluated in recent years. Widespread application has been hindered by a lack of knowledge regarding the geographical stability and hence applicability of such methods beyond the regional level. This study assessed the performance of five previously r...

An inter-laboratory study of the accuracy of microbial source tracking (MST) methods was conducted using challenge fecal and sewage samples that were spiked into artificial freshwater and provided as unknowns (blind test samples) to the laboratories. The results of the Source Identification Protocol Project (SIPP) are presented in a series of paper...

The Water Framework Directive (WFD) regulates surface water quality standards in the European Union (EU). The Directive call for the identification and management of point and diffuse sources of pollution and requires the establishment of a 'programme of measures' for identified river basin districts, in order to achieve a "good status" by 2015. Th...

The enumeration of phages infecting host-specific strains of Bacteroides has been widely recognised as an effective and low-cost method of microbial source tracking (MST). A recently described human-specific Bacteroides host strain (GB-124) has been shown to detect bacteriophages exclusively in human-impacted waters and is emerging as a useful MST...

Greater incidence of storm events, which can lead to greater contamination of surface waters by human and animal faeces, are a predicted feature of climate change in parts of Europe and elsewhere. The aim of this study was to combine the use of a novel quantitative microbial source tracking (QMST) method with established water quality monitoring pr...

Bacteriophage associated with the human gut microbiome are likely to have an important impact on community structure and function, and provide a wealth of biotechnological opportunities. Despite this, knowledge of the ecology and composition of bacteriophage in the gut bacterial community remains poor, with few well characterized gut-associated pha...

Comparison of tetranucleotide correlation scores for complete and draft concatenated genomes. To verify that concatenation of draft genomes, and the unfinished nature of these datasets did not corrupt the tetranucleotide genome signatures of these genomes, complete and draft genomes for several Bacteroides species were compared. It is expected that...

Details of closest sequences to φB124-14 by tetra score. For each sequence type represented (phage, virome, chromosome), the top six closest sequences to φB124-14 by tetranucleotide repeat frequency (TRF) score are indicated by numerals on the scatter plot, and colours correspond to sequence types (as detailed in chart legend). The table provides t...

Origin of species and strains used in φB124-14 host range assays1. 1 highly related B. fragilis strains used for tree construction (Figure 1B) also included. NT – not tested. (DOCX)

φB124-14 predicted ORFs and putative functional assignments. 1 ORF numbers and functional assignments correspond to those represent on genetic maps of the ФB124-14 genome presented in Figure 2. 2 ORFs were assigned roles relating to broad functions based on results of BlastP and conserved domain searches of translated ORF amino acid sequences. (DOC...

Bacterial chromosomes, phage genomes and metagenomic fragments used in phage phylogenetic analyses and ecological profiling (Figures 7 and 8).1 – Classification, refers to classification of genomes used for ecological profiling in Figure 8B. Genomes from phage infecting host bacteria belonging from a particular genus were assigned one of three broa...

Greater incidence of storm events, which can lead to greater contamination of surface waters by human and animal faeces, are a predicted feature of climate change in parts of Europe and elsewhere. The aim of this study was to combine the use of a novel quantitative microbial source tracking (QMST) method with established water quality monitoring pr...

Current fecal indicator bacteria (FIB) and emerging microbial source tracking (MST) methods may indicate the presence and even the likely source of water contamination, but they are less effective at determining the potential risk to health from human enteric viruses. This paper investigates the presence of human-specific phages (detected using a l...

This paper describes the isolation of Enterococcus host strains, for potential use as simple bacteriophage (phage)-based microbial source tracking (MST) tools. Presumptive Enterococcus host strains were isolated from cattle feces, raw municipal wastewater, agricultural runoff, and waters impacted by farms or wastewater treatment works (WWTW) in sou...

In many parts of the world, microbial contamination of surface waters used for drinking, recreation, and shellfishery remains a pervasive risk to human health, especially in Less Economically Developed Countries (LEDC). However, the capacity to provide effective management strategies to break the waterborne route to human infection is often thwarte...

Previous studies have shown that Escherichia coli and enterococci are unreliable indicators of fecal contamination in Hawaii because of their ability to multiply in environmental soils. In this study, the method of detecting Bacteroides phages as specific markers of sewage contamination in Hawaii's recreational waters was evaluated because these se...

Scientists have developed new techniques that demonstrate the presence of faecal indicator organisms (FIO) in water supplies and recreational water facilities and revealing either the source of contamination is human or non-human. The emergence of these new techniques have been helpful in improving microbial risk management and reduce human contact...

Recent work has suggested that bacteriophages infecting Bacteroides are a potential tool for faecal source tracking, but that different host strains may be needed for different geographic areas. This study used a recently identified strain of Bacteroides (GB-124) to detect human sources of faecal pollution in a river catchment in southeast England...

This manuscript describes the use of a recently developed microbial source tracking (MST) technique to determine sources of fecal bacteria (enterococci) from four separate European countries. The investigation aimed to evaluate whether the origin of bacterial populations from France, Spain, and Sweden (n = 456) could be predicted using a library of...

Several microbes and chemicals have been considered as potential tracers to identify fecal sources in the environment. However, to date, no one approach has been shown to accurately identify the origins of fecal pollution in aquatic environments. In this multilaboratory study, different microbial and chemical indicators were analyzed in order to di...

Bacteriophages infecting Bacteroides are potentially a good tool for fecal source tracking, but different Bacteroides host strains are needed for different geographic areas. A feasible method for isolating Bacteroides host strains for phages present in human fecal material is described. Useful strains were identified for application in Spain and th...

The objectives of this study are to generate knowledge about methods to track the sources of faecal pollution in surface waters, with the aim of having one or a few easy procedures applicable to different geographic areas in Europe. For this, a first field study using already proposed methods (genotypes of F-specific RNA bacteriophages, bacteriopha...

Antibiotic resistance profiling (ARP) is a potentially useful method for distinguishing faecal bacteria according to host source. This phenotypic approach has cost benefits over genotypic methods, but existing protocols are time-consuming and manual data handling is open to human error. A simplified, low-cost approach to the ARP technique was devel...

A wide variety of approaches to tracking the origin of faecal pollution have been proposed but no single technique is yet able to pinpoint the origin of water pollution incidents in all cases. Methods may be divided into two broad categories, i.e. chemical and microbial. Organisms may be classified (or distinguished) by a variety of genotypic and p...