Karrie Melville

• PhD
• Division Manager - Research and Development at Neogen

A single-step lateral flow immunoassay (LFIA) was developed and validated for the rapid screening of paralytic shellfish toxins (PSTs) from a variety of shellfish species, at concentrations relevant to regulatory limits of 800 µg STX-diHCl equivalents/kg shellfish meat. A simple aqueous extraction protocol was performed within several minutes from...

This study investigated the fungal community structure present in chemically distinct sandstone horizons. Community fingerprinting (intergenic spacer analysis) and cloning techniques were utilized, in addition to an analysis of the cultivable fungal population, to assess the nature and extent of fungal diversity present on sandstone surfaces. The m...

Rocks and minerals represent a vast reservoir of elements, many of them are essential to life. Bulk biological metals, such as Na, K, Mg and Ca, are among the eight most abundant elements in the Earth's crust and together make up 11.06% of crustal rock (Fraústo da Silva & Williams, 1993; Gadd, 2004). Rocks and minerals also include essential metals...

This study exploited the contrasting major element chemistry of a pegmatitic granite to investigate mineralogical influences on bacterial community structure. Intact crystals of variably weathered muscovite, plagioclase, K-feldspar, and quartz were extracted, together with whole-rock granite. Environmental scanning electron microscopy revealed a di...

This study exploited the contrasting major element chemistry of adjacent, physically separable crystals of framework and sheet silicates in a pegmatitic granite to investigate the mineralogical influences of fungal community structure on mineral surfaces. Large intact crystals of variably weathered muscovite, plagioclase, K-feldspar, and quartz wer...

The fungus Beauveria caledonica was highly tolerant to toxic metals and solubilized cadmium, copper, lead, and zinc minerals, converting them into oxalates. This fungus was found to overexcrete organic acids with strong metal-chelating properties (oxalic and citric acids), suggesting that a ligand-promoted mechanism was the main mechanism of minera...