Spotlight on Bacillus cereus and its food poisoning toxins

The first publication I published internationally was on Clostridium perfringens enterotoxin (CPE) in 1977, and my PhD is on CPE. At the ‘First European Workshop on Bacterial Protein Toxins’ (Seillac, France, June 1983), I got an update on the food poisoning caused by Bacillus cereus, and was surprised how little that was known about both the emetic- and diarrhoeal syndrome. I actually decided then that I would like to follow up on the B. cereus toxins, but I mostly focused on the CPE for many years to come. Two years later at the ‘Second European Workshop on Bacterial Protein Toxins’ (Wepion, Belgium, July, 1985), I was invited speaker, and gave the talk: ‘Structure and mechanism of action of the enterotoxin from Clostridium perfringens type A’. At this conference, I talked with Dr David Ellar from University of Cambridge, UK, and members of his group. Dr Ellar's group was working on B. thuringiensis δ-endotoxins. The following year the ‘bacterial genetic revolution’ hit our laboratory at Norwegian Food Research Institute, and as a microbiologist/protein chemist, I needed to make a choice: Weather or not to follow up on microbial genetics. I applied for a sabbatical year, which I got (1986/87) and contacted Dr Ellar about working in his laboratory on B. thuringiensis δ-endotoxins. I was accepted and moved to Cambridge late June 1986, for a year. My plans was to work on B. cereus after returning home and with the very close relationship between B. cereus and B. thuringiensis, I got to the best possible environment in Cambridge. This year also resulted in my first paper using microbial genetics (Granum, Pinnavaia and Ellar 1988)