We saw it in real time, accidentally, in a microbiology class I took.
Lab final was basically “swab this mystery petri dish, run some tests, and tell me what it is”. So, start running different stains and indicator tests, result was eventually pretty clearly S. Aurius. Except it wasn’t. The thing that gave it away was a manitol digestion test, which S. Aurius pops positive for, but the other strain of S. ___ we tested for pop negative.
Everyone’s manitol test was positive, but the correct answer should have been S. Epidermidis.
Prof thought the test sample was contaminated, so he did an isolation swab on his own time… still a pure sample of S. Epidermidis, it just evolved under our nose to digest manitol and fucked everyone’s lab result.
We saw it in real time, accidentally, in a microbiology class I took.
Lab final was basically “swab this mystery petri dish, run some tests, and tell me what it is”. So, start running different stains and indicator tests, result was eventually pretty clearly S. Aurius. Except it wasn’t. The thing that gave it away was a manitol digestion test, which S. Aurius pops positive for, but the other strain of S. ___ we tested for pop negative.
Everyone’s manitol test was positive, but the correct answer should have been S. Epidermidis.
Prof thought the test sample was contaminated, so he did an isolation swab on his own time… still a pure sample of S. Epidermidis, it just evolved under our nose to digest manitol and fucked everyone’s lab result.
He had to change everyone’s grade. :D