Contrary to some scientific beliefs, Flinders University PhD candidate Michael Taylor has literally grown his own evidence to suggest the bacterium which causes the potentially-fatal Legionnaires disease is more than just a parasite.

Using water tanks, Mr Taylor has created a lab-scale air-conditioning cooling tower  an ideal breeding ground for the legionella bacteria  and cultivated the aquatic organism in ideal temperatures to see whether it only ever feeds off a host, as parasites do, or if it can exist outside the environment and gain nutrients from multiple sources.

There are two mechanisms of survival for legionella, Mr. Taylor, 26, said.

One argues that legionella can only ever exist in a host, such as an amoeba, and the other group suggests it does that when the opportunity arises but it can quite happily live in other environments.

According to his microscopic-based research, Mr. Taylor said he had sided with the belief that the organism can actually live without being a parasite.

I took samples of bacterial slime that the legionella was growing in and found clusters that werent growing in an amoeba; they actually looked like they had multiplied by themselves outside of a host.

The conclusion Ive therefore come to is that the organism has multiple survival strategies and doesnt just live inside a host, there are other ways it can survive and exist.

Discovered in 1976, Mr Taylor said legionella was a relatively new bacteria yet one that has not been the subject of much scientific research.

It doesnt cause a whole lot of deaths in the realm of disease but the thing that makes it scary is that if you walk into a supermarket and they havent cleaned their cooling tower you can breathe it in and get sick  its not something you can avoid just by cleaning out your pantry.

Its also a relatively untouched area of research but if you know specifically how it lives you can understand how to get rid of it more effectively.

A presentation on Mr. Taylors research was a finalist in Flinders Universitys inaugural Three Minute Thesis, a competition which encourages PhD students to explain their research project in plain English, both on paper and in person.

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