Podcast-Professor Jordan Peccia – Yale University – Building Microbiomes Research to Practice

“A hot topic in the research community is the microbiome of the built environment. This week on IAQ Radio we welcome one of the leading researchers in this area, Dr. Jordan Peccia. His principle areas of research include: (i) human exposure to bacterial and viral pathogens emitted during the land application of sewage sludge, (ii) …

An informative glimpse into the drug factory microbiome: Which bugs coexist with our drugs? The story behind the paper

The story behind: Toward the Drug Factory Microbiome: Microbial Community Variations in Antibiotic-Producing Clean Rooms (OMICS. 2018 Feb;22(2):133-144. doi: 10.1089/omi.2017.0091.) PMID: 28873001 [Preprint] It was in 2013, on my return to Cairo University after a couple of years as a visiting scientist at UCSD, that I met Amal for the first time. Amal was a fresh master’s …

New paper of interest on Hospital Plumbing and Carbapenem Resistance

New paper of interest:: Genomic Analysis of Hospital Plumbing Reveals Diverse Reservoir of Bacterial Plasmids Conferring Carbapenem Resistance Weingarten RA, Johnson RC, Conlan S, Ramsburg AM, Dekker JP, Lau AF, Khil P, Odom RT, Deming C, Park M, Thomas PJ, NISC Comparative Sequencing Program, Henderson DK, Palmore TN, Segre JA, Frank KM. 2018. Genomic analysis …

Podcast-Radio Joe Live From The 5th Annual SLOAN Microbiology of the Built Environment Conference – University of Colorado Boulder

This week Radio Joe was live from beautiful Boulder Colorado and Colorado University at the 5th SLOAN Microbiology of the Built Environment Conference. The conference is a gathering of the leading researchers in the world that study the microbiome of the built environment. A diverse group of scientists from around the world have been meeting …

New Report on The Struggle for Water Justice from the UC Davis Center for Regional Change

Of potential interest:: The Struggle for Water Justice from the Center for Regional Change at UC Davis. Summary: The Struggle for Water Justice: Disadvantaged Unincorporated Communities in California’s San Joaquin ValleyFebruary 2018 In California, lack of access to clean, safe, and affordable water is a threat to public health and well-being, and violates the state’s newly codified …

Podcast-Mark Hernandez, PhD, PE – Microbiology of the Normal and Water Damaged Buildings

Episode 425 focuses on the microbiology of the normal and water damaged built environment. With respect to environmental investigations, Hernandez’s aerobiology characterization work has focused on large scale disasters including bioaerosols generated by major metropolitan floods.

Podcast-Sarah Elizabeth Kwan, PhM, EIT – Peccia Env Biotechnology Lab at Yale – Microbiology of the Built Environment

Episode 445 interviews Sarah Kwan, who is a Ph.D. candidate and NSF Graduate Research Fellow in the Peccia Environmental Biotechnology Laboratory at Yale University. She also received her M.S and Ph.M. in Environmental Engineering from Yale. Recently, she has been conducting research investigating the correlation of indoor air pollution in homes and schools of the Cherokee Nation …

Paper of possible interest: KatharoSeq Enables High-Throughput Microbiome Analysis from Low-Biomass Samples

This may be of interest to people out there.  Source: KatharoSeq Enables High-Throughput Microbiome Analysis from Low-Biomass Samples | mSystems Abstract: Microbiome analyses of low-biomass samples are challenging because of contamination and inefficiencies, leading many investigators to employ low-throughput methods with minimal controls. We developed a new automated protocol, KatharoSeq (from the Greek katharos [clean]), …

Upcoming reddit “Ask Me Anything” #AMA on the Microbiology of the Built Environment

This Friday, March 16th at 1:00pm (EDT), the folks over at the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) will be participating in a reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) on the Microbiology of the Built Environment.  The featured experts are Diane Gold, Vivian Loftness, and Jordan Peccia.  All three were committee members on the NAS group that …