Postdoctoral or Staff Scientist Computational Biology/Bioinformatics position in the A.E. Allen Lab in San Diego

Got this by email and am posting here:   The A.E. Allen Lab conducts research at the intersection biological and microbial oceanography and functional genomics. We are a joint lab group between the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego and the Environmental and Microbial Genomics department at the J. Craig Venter Institute …

A new, and scary, fungus among us #MoBE #Candida

Fascinating, scary and really important read from Maryn McKenna in Wired: The Strange and Curious Case of the Deadly Superbug Yeast By the normal standards of outbreak, Candida auris signals a mind-bending shift—and it’s forcing researchers draw on some of medicine’s oldest practices to rethink treatment.   The article tells the tale of Candida auris a fungus that …

New #MoBE paper of interest: Exploring temporal patterns of bacterial and fungal DNA accumulation on a ventilation system filter 

This new #OpenAccess paper may be of interest to those out there thinking about microbes in the built environment. : Luhung I, Wu Y, Xu S, Yamamoto N, Wei-Chung Chang V, Nazaroff WW (2018) Exploring temporal patterns of bacterial and fungal DNA accumulation on a ventilation system filter for a Singapore university library. PLoS ONE …

Really important and interesting: Large scale experiment probes chemistry inside our homes

News story about the fascinating and important new project on chemistry of the home.  This is being supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation in their new Chemistry of the Built Environment program. Dozens of analytical instruments have spent a month observing the chemistry of the air inside a three bed house Source: Large scale …

Postdoc position in plant microbe interactions at DOE-JGI

Posting this email I received from Ester Singer: ———————- Exciting and unique postdoctoral opportunity at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Plant Microbiome Research Project features: Develop a state-of-the-art growth chamber(“EcoPod”) to study plant-microbiome-ecosystem dynamics under conditions relevant to the real world: https://sites.google.com/lbl.gov/ecopods/ Work with a multi-disciplinary team ofengineers, plant biologists, microbial ecologists and soil scientists at …

New paper of interest on how premature infant gut microbiome shapes the microbiome of NICUs

There is a new paper of interest from Jill Banfield’s lab.  I found out about it via Twitter: Study on the NICU microbiome out now in @MicrobiomeJ – The developing premature infant gut microbiome is a major factor shaping the microbiome of neonatal intensive care unit rooms. https://t.co/GEtMkLxwUy @bmbrook @MattagenOlmics @mcgrath_bio @dahanome — The Banfield …

NIAID seeks comments and suggestions on Tuberculosis Strategic Plan #TB #Pathogens

NIH/NIAID is seeking comments on their recently released Tuberculosis Strategic Command. See: NIAID Tuberculosis Strategic Plan Request for Information (RFI) I have copied the announcement from the release below: ——————————————— NIAID Tuberculosis Strategic Plan Request for Information (RFI) Purpose This Notice is a time-sensitive Request for Information (RFI) inviting comments and suggestions on the framework …

New report from NASEM: If Misused, Synthetic Biology Could Expand the Possibility of Creating New Weapons

New report on Synthetic Biology from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine that may be of interest. Synthetic biology expands the possibilities for creating new weapons — including making existing bacteria and viruses more harmful — while decreasing the time required to engineer such organisms, concludes a new report by the National Academies …

Where does privacy end and epidemiology begin? How much should we use surveys of what is in sewers and how far up the line should they go?

Question of the day. Where do we draw the line in terms of privacy when sampling sewer systems?  I have had some major concerns about microbiome studies using sewer system samples in the past.  And of course people are trying to use sewer system studies to look at all sorts of other epidemiology related data. …