Berkeley research on the microbial ecology of the built environment

We at the Berkeley Indoor Microbial Ecology Research Consortium (BIMERC) are thrilled to have received a renewal grant from the Sloan Foundation to understand the microbial ecology of the built environment as mediated by interactions among organisms, particulate matter, and volatile and non-volatile chemicals. This grant gives us an opportunity to expand on our collaborative work that combines …

Postdoctoral Fellowship Opportunity: Microbiology of the Built Environment

(posted on behalf of Paula Olsiewski and the Sloan Foundation) The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation announces a funding opportunity in its Microbiology of the Built Environment (MoBE) program.   The Foundation seeks to further the development of talented early stage Ph.D. scientists and engineers through the Microbiology of the Built Environment (MoBE) Postdoctoral Fellowship program.  …

Next Phase of Sloan Plumbing Microbiome Journey! Brain-eating Amoebae and Recycled Water

Sloan has just renewed our funding to build on our foundational research at Virginia Tech that has established general factors broadly shaping the composition of the premise plumbing microbiome!  In this next phase we will focus on shifts in water chemistry and temperature, using brain-eating amoebae as a key exemplar (need to protect those brains!).  …

Journal Club: Crowdfunding Science

What is better than Open Access?! Citizen Science AND Open Access! The March issue of JMBE was all that. You have probably already heard of Kittybiome and/or The Koala Project, 2 ongoing projects in the Eisen Lab. Both projects were featured in the paper, “Crowdfunding Campaigns Help Researchers Launch Projects and Generate Outreach”, published in …

Strategies & Techniques for Analyzing Microbial Population Structures (STAMPS) Course 8/3-8/13

The Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole. MA will be offering their “STAMPS”: (Strategies & Techniques for Analyzing Microbial Population Structures) Course this August (8/3-8/13). Course Dates: August 3 — August 13, 2016 Deadline: April 8, 2016 | Apply here Course Website Course Schedule Directors: Mitchell L. Sogin, MBL and David B. Mark Welch, MBL …

The social microbiome of the social honey bee

*This blog post highlights the backstory to my student’s project, which you can find here, on experiment.com. Discoveries in science can come from unexpected sources I became a scientist because my undergraduate mentor allowed me the opportunity to make my own discoveries.  While a young student at Swarthmore College, my then mentor Rachel Merz gave …

Gates Foundation seeking proposals on Characterizing and Tracking Antimicrobial Resistance

This seems like a really good opportunity for some interesting and critically important microbial diversity work: Novel Approaches to Characterizing and Tracking the Global Burden of Antimicrobial Resistance | Grand Challenges This link is to a call for proposals from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on Antimicrobial Resistance.  Specifically they write: We are soliciting …

University of Oregon research on microbial communities in 72 homes

The University of Oregon published this announcement on AAAS’ EurekAlert: Oregon architecture researchers to study indoor air quality in 72 homes. So a good song to play while reading this post would be: “Portland, Oregon” ‌‌by Loretta Lynn & Jack White. The press release starts off with a short summary of this project: University of Oregon researchers and industry partners …