#COVID19 Journal Club: “Persistence of SARS-CoV-2 in Water and Wastewater”

Another wastewater study… but looking at the very important question of whether infectious virus can be detected in the waste stream.  Most wastewater studies to date have only looked at viral RNA.  The not-too-surprising punchline is that infectious virus dies out long before the RNA signal is degraded.  This kind of information we be useful …

#COVID19 Journal Club: “Transmission of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 During Long Flight”

I took a break from blogging to help start up the mass asymptomatic testing program for SARS-CoV-2 at UC Davis but now I’m working through the backlog of relevant papers to post about. I’ve posted a lot so far about restaurants, hospitals, and wastewater sampling…. but to my knowledge this is the first published description …

Job Post: Senior Chemist – Healthy Home at Bissell Corporation

The Senior Chemist – Healthy Home is responsible for development of next-generation technologies for the creation and management of a healthy home environment and microbiome, leveraging BISSELL’s unique position as a developer of both cleaning devices and chemical/natural based formulations. They assist in building department and product strategies, as well as being a liaison to …

NAS “Airborne Transmission of SARS-CoV-2” meeting webcast available #Covid19

Webcast Recording Now Available: Airborne Transmission of SARS-CoV-2  Virtual Workshop August 26-27, 2020 Thank you for participating in our two-day workshop. To view the webcast recording click on this link: https://www.nationalacademies.org/event/08-26-2020/airborne-transmission-of-sars-cov-2-a-virtual-workshop   Event Description There is much we don’t know about the transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. We know it can spread from …

New MoBE research topic in Frontiers Genetics: Call for papers!

Dear MoBE community, we provide a new research topic in Frontiers Genetics entitled “Unveiling the Metagenomic World of the Built Environment”. You will find more details here: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/15119/unveiling-the-metagenomic-world-of-the-built-environment Looking forward to your contributions! Alexander Mahnert & Co-Editors

#COVID19 Preprint Journal Club: “Detection of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in commercial passenger aircraft and cruise ship wastewater: a surveillance tool for assessing the presence of COVID-19 infected travelers”

So we’ve written a lot about wastewater monitoring as a tool for community-level surveillance for SARS-CoV-2.  I thought this article was a nice twist on that… looking at airplanes and cruise ships as a way to better monitor the virus in a travel setting.  Abstract below: Abstract Background Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) for the severe acute …

Story Behind the Paper: Draft genomes from JPL spacecraft… assembled by undergraduates

Just a quick post here that our paper just came out, “Draft Genome Sequences of Bacillus glennii V44-8, Bacillus saganii V47-23a, Bacillus sp. Strain V59.32b, Bacillus sp. Strain MER_TA_151, and Paenibacillus sp. Strain MER_111, Isolated from Cleanrooms Where the Viking and Mars Exploration Rover Spacecraft Were Assembled“.  This describes the genomes of a couple new …

#COVID19 Preprint Journal Club: “Detection and Survival of SARS-coronavirus in Human Stool, Urine, Wastewater and Sludge”

(h/t to Heather Bischel for the link) Yet another really nice and comprehensive review of the state of things regarding wastewater sampling for SARS-CoV-2.  “Detection and Survival of SARS-coronavirus in Human Stool, Urine, Wastewater and Sludge“.  This paper does a particularly nice job of looking at the following three questions: 1)What is the evidence for …

#COVID19 Journal Club: “Wastewater-Based Epidemiology: Global Collaborative to Maximize Contributions in the Fight Against COVID-19”

This is less of an article than an announcement of a global collaboration and website for wastewater sampling for SARS-CoV-2.  “Wastewater-Based Epidemiology: Global Collaborative to Maximize Contributions in the Fight Against COVID-19“.  This is a non peer-reviewed opinion piece that summarizes the current state of knowledge on wastewater testing for SARS-CoV-2 and describes their COVID-19 …

Journal Club: “Initial Mapping of the New York City Wastewater Virome”

While not about COVID19 directly, this paper “Initial Mapping of the New York City Wastewater Virome” has implications for the many many folks looking at SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater these days.  This work is looking at all the viruses in the wastewater system and is one of relatively few metagenomic studies out there that focuses on …