Time for an update with recent papers on the microbes of the built environment. I have many, so I will break them up into two different posts. Microbes in buildings Microbial Density on Electronic Devices – Sulan Kith – Int.J.Curr.Microbiol.App.Sci Human participants each used an tablet, smart phone and media player for 20 minutes. We predicted that microbial density would …
It is well known that antibiotic resistance in bacteria happens much faster than we can possibly develop novel antibiotics. So what if instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, we just rearrange it? Well, researchers at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute had a similar idea in regards to reducing antibiotic resistance …
Regular visitors to the microBEnet website maybe have noticed some big changes in the last few months to the site layout. More interesting than the visual changes, are the things going on behind the scenes. microBEnet has partnered with Press Forward which is a free and open-source project that aims to “enable teams of researchers …
A recent news article discusses the impact of plant/soil microbiome research on agriculture, specifically helping feed a projected 9 million people in 2050. Novozymes and other corporations are working with researchers and farmers to make microbial products that help promote and optimize plant growth in various ways (for instance, drought tolerance). The idea sounds a bit like …
I’m very excited about this news story. California Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill requiring antimicrobial drugs to be available only through veterinary prescription and not simply for growth promotion. It’s a small step in limiting widespread resistance from overuse of antibiotics, but hopefully it serves as an example to other states and nations. China …
Yet Another Microbiome Journal? Jack A Gilbert Earlier this year I was invited by the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) to be the Founding Editor in Chief of a new journal that they insisted would add to the cadre of existing publications supported by the ASM. As a constant editor I was interested, but also …
Norm Pace gave a talk at UC Davis yesterday on “Metagenomics and the Tree of Life”. I and a few other people posted live Tweets from the talk which I have compiled together via the Storify system. This “Storify” is embedded below. In addition, Lisa Cohen, who was at the talk posted her notes which …
Just got pointed to this by Norm Pace and it seems of potential interest: The Carl R. Woese Postdoctoral Fellowship. The Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology (IGB) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is proud to announce THE CARL R. WOESE POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM In 1977, Carl R. Woese overturned one of the …
Just got sent this by Katherine Bowman from the Board on Life Sciences. This is really important and if you know of someone who would be good please consider nominating them. Request for Committee Nominations — Microbiomes of the Built Environment: From Research to Application The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine are …
(This is a guest post by Jordan Peccia at Yale University) After a six-month period of home recruitment, surface and aerosol sampling campaigns have begun in an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation indoor microbiome sponsored project awarded to Tulsa and Yale Universities. The goal of this proposed research is to explore how two central and modifiable …