Swabs to Genome Workflow available as pre-print on PeerJ

Almost exactly a year ago we finally wrapped up our undergraduate project focusing on sequencing and assembling reference genomes from the built environment.  This project aimed to take undergrads through every step from starting with a swab to ending with a published genome announcement and data in NCBI. Over the course of the work, we …

Workshop report: Building science to advance research in the microbiology of the built environment

While recent studies of the microbiology of the built environment (MoBE) have greatly increased our understanding of microbial community structure and composition on surfaces and in air within the spaces in which we live and work, most have been driven and led primarily by microbiologists with the building science community playing a supporting role. Perhaps as …

A primer on detecting indoor bioaerosols

One of the issues that was raised in the recent Microbiology of the Built Environment conference in Boulder was sampling, specifically what and how is the material collected for subsequent biological analysis. Industrial hygienists and those tackling questions of exposure have devoted a lot of time to developing methods for how to study the indoor …

Visualizing millions of DNA sequences – in your web browser!

I’ve been remotely following the Sloan MBE meeting discussions (happening in Boulder, CO this week), and yesterday there was a lot of Twitter discussion focused on data visualization tools. How do we make sense of the millions of DNA sequences we generate from microbial ecology projects in the Built Environment? I thought I’d use this opportunity to highlight …

The 11.4 million mile swab kit

I’m proud to announce that the sample collection for the building science component of Project MERCCURI is complete! In early May, Koichi Wakata from JAXA (Japan’s space exploration agency) collected swabs swabs of surfaces aboard the International Space Station. Back in June last year, Jenna, Wendy and I went to the Johnson Space Center in …

IRB approval to collect samples from buildings, people, and yes, kittens!

Happy spring! It’s time for flowers and kittens. We are starting a study to explore the development of the microbiome in neonatal kittens. Because what’s cuter than kittens? This project is partially an outreach project to get people who already love kittens excited about microbes and how the microbiome can be shaped by the environment. Here’s our …

Podcast hosts discussing Rachel Adams paper on fungal diversity in the built environment

One of my spare time activities is to listen to science-themed podcasts and for several years I’ve been following the “This week in Microbiology” and “This week in Virology” podcasts hosted by Vincent Racanielloand friends at Columbia University. During the podcast, the hosts usually discuss a couple papers of interest to them similar to a …

Building science measurements in the Hospital Microbiome Project: Part 1

First of all, Happy Halloween everyone. I think my costume this year will be a blogger! For those that don’t know me, I’m Brent Stephens, an assistant professor in the Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering at Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, IL. I call my research team the Built Environment Research Group …