New papers on Microbiology of the Built Environment, October 21, 2016

Microbes indoors How do we make indoor environments and healthcare settings healthier? – Jack A. Gilbert – Microbial Biotechnology (OA) It is now well accepted that our modern lifestyle has certain implications for our health (Schaub et al., 2006), mainly as a result of our willingness to remove ourselves from the biological diversity of our …

Meeting: Chemistry of Microbiomes in Human Environments – 11/9/16

November 9 Seminar: The Chemistry of Microbiomes in Human Environments Hosted by the Chemical Sciences Roundtable Wednesday, November 9 2pm – 5pm EDT When most people think about microbes, they think disease. For well over 100 years the medical community’s mantra has been that “the only good bug is a dead bug.” But the functions …

New Sloan Funded Project: The MoBE 2017 Research and Applications Symposium

We received the announcement today that the MoBE 2017 Symposium, chaired by Lynn Schriml at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, Institute for Genome Sciences, has been funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation’s program in the Microbiology of the Built Environment. MoBE 2017 will be co-sponsored by and held at the National Academy …

Meeting Report: Microbiomes of the Built Environment #3 – Day 2

Report on Day 2 of the “Microbiomes of the Built Environment: From Research to Application”.  My report and Storify of tweets from Day 1 can be found here. Session #1 “Beyond Bacteria: Viral and Fungal Ecology in Indoor Environments” First speaker was Linsey Marr “Viruses in the Built Environment”.  Talking about their work looking at …

Meeting Report: Microbiomes of the Built Environment – Meeting #3: Day 1

Today was the first day of the 3rd meeting in the NAS-sponsored series of “Microbiomes of the Built Environment:  From Research to Application” meetings.  This meeting was held at UC Irvine and the goal was to provide information for the NAS committee that will subsequently produce a report on the status of the field.  For …

From @teamwaxman in STAT: pharma waste and antibiotic resistance

Waste released from pharmaceutical plants in India and China is contributing to the spread of antibiotic-resistant superbugs. So this is certainly interesting.  There is an opinion piece in STAT by Henry Waxman and Bill Corr from Waxman Strategies: Waste from pharmaceutical plants promotes antibiotic-resistant superbugs.  It is of interest both because we are almost certainly in …

Metagenomics workshop taught by Titus Brown and Harriet Alexander

This is definitely worth checking out. Titus Brown and Harriet Alexander taught a two day metagenomics workshop at UCSD and they have written up some details about it and posted videos. Wrap up blog: titus-blog/2016-metagenom ics-workshop-at-sio.rst at public · ctb/titus-blog · GitHub All the docs here: http://2016-metagenomics-sio.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ Videos

New papers on Microbiology of the Built Environment, October 15, 2016

Microbes indoors Review: Microorganisms in Confined Habitats: Microbial Monitoring and Control of Intensive Care Units, Operating Rooms, Cleanrooms and the International Space Station – Maximilian Mora – Frontiers in Microbiology (OA) Indoor environments, where people spend most of their time, are characterized by a specific microbial community, the indoor microbiome. Most indoor environments are connected to …