Well, I guess this means microbiome engineering has arrived (sort of)

Just got pointed (by Laurie Garrett) to this call for proposals from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation: Addressing Newborn and Infant Gut Health Through Bacteriophage-Mediated Microbiome Engineering. Some key lines from the call: A growing body of evidence suggests that healthy gut function early in life plays a significant role in adult wellbeing. It is further …

Today in “where’s the pathogen?” Can you find Burkholderia on 500 acres with 50 samples?

Well, this story is a wee bit disturbing: Deadly bacteria release sparks concern at Louisiana lab. Summary from USA Today: Officials are investigating how a deadly type of bacteria was released from a high-security laboratory at the Tulane National Primate Center in Louisiana. Officials say there is no risk to the public. Many parts of the …

Yes Virginia, there is a paper on microbial transfer during beer pong

Well, normally I would avoid writing about non open access papers here since I like to write about papers all readers can have access to.  But I am making an exception here for the entertainment value of the matter.  The paper is: Bacterial transfer to beverages during drinking games: ‘beer pong’ – International Journal of Food …

Does microbiology of the built environment have any Big Data issues? If so …. $$$$

Just was sent this by our grants office: nsf.gov – Funding – Critical Techniques and Technologies for Advancing Foundations and Applications of Big Data Science & Engineering – US National Science Foundation (NSF). Seems like this may be of interest to folks working on microbiology of the built environment as there are some serious Big Data …

Open courses and course materials on microbiology of the built environment

One activity we have been hoping to do more of here at microBEnet is to catalyze the development and sharing and evaluation of course materials (preferably free and open) for teaching about microbiology of the built environment.  I confess this is just not my area of expertise so I am going to be writing a …

A plea to stop ignoring microbial ecosystem effects of antimicrobial agents

Well, the stories just keep coming about antimicrobial agents we can use to kill off some pathogen in our environment.  Today’s is about plasma – yes plasma – and how it can deactivate norovirus in the environment: ‘Cold plasma’ kills off norovirus from the BBC.   The article discusses a new study in the journal mBio.  Some key …