Nice little news story about the Hospital Microbiome project In Nature News: Patients leave a microbial mark on hospitals : Nature News & Comment. The article mentions that Jack Gilbert will be presenting results on this project at the Sloan Foundation meeting on Microbiology of the Built Environment today. Good that I am at that meeting. …
Just kidding; I paid to get in, but this conference is not intended for a research architect/building scientist like me. This was my third ASM meeting, and now I know something approaching 1% of the jargon, so I was able to “mine” the sessions, especially the posters, for built-environment-relevant content. Under the surface of the …
Day 2: Started off the day with the “Microbes in Action! Dynamics of Single Cells to Communities” which included some great talks by Greg Caporaso, Sarah Cobey, Mary Lidstrom, Trina McMahon, and Jeff Gore. The afternoon was a tough call between “Microbiology’s Next Top Model: Predicting the Future with Math and Microbes” organized by Jack …
The first day at ASM was amazing. Started off the morning by attending the “Putting ‘Omics to the Test” session which contained talks by Ed DeLong, David Stahl, Nicole Dubilier, Julia Vorholt, and Thomas Shenk. The overall theme of this session was to look at example where ‘omics data (genomics, proteomics, transcriptomics, etc.) data was …
Another genome report from our microBEnet project on generating reference genomes for microbes from the built environment is out: Draft Genome Sequence of Curtobacterium flaccumfaciens Strain UCD-AKU (Phylum Actinobacteria). From the paper: Curtobacterium flaccumfaciens strain UCD-AKU was isolated from a residential carpet in Davis, California, as part of a project to produce reference genomes for microorganisms …
Last September, I watched Greg Wilson’s three-minute pitch for Software Carpentry, and I was SOLD! Do I want to get more done at the computer in less time? Absolutely! The only difficulty was waiting until this week for it to happen. Finally, this past Monday and Tuesday (May 13-14,) Software Carpentry arrived at UC Davis. …
In their just published paper in Environmental Science & Technology, “Tetracycline Resistance and Class 1 Integron Genes Associated with Indoor and Outdoor Aerosols,” Alison L. Ling, Norman R. Pace, Mark T. Hernandez, and Timothy M. LaPara have found that genes escape the indoor environment and can be found 2 km away. The abstract can be …
Two new papers out from the microBEnet Undergraduate Research: Built Environment Reference Genomes project: Coil DA, Doctor JI, Lang JM, Darling AE, Eisen JA. 2013. Draft Genome Sequence of Kocuria sp. Strain UCD-OTCP (Phylum Actinobacteria). Genome Announc. 1(3):e00172-13. doi:10.1128/genomeA.00172-13. Diep AL, Lang JM, Darling AE, Eisen JA, Coil DA. 2013. Draft genome sequence of Dietzia sp. strain UCD-THP (phylum …
A story on the May 6th NPR program, Morning Edition, “Parents’ Saliva On Pacifiers Could Ward Off Baby’s Allergies” features a focus on the human microbiome, partental behavior and babies’ allergies. “That word “microbiome” – describing the collection of bacteria that live in and on our bodies – keeps popping up. This time, researchers say …
UPDATED AT BOTTOM – TURNS OUT NEWS STORY WAS VERY MISLEADING Wow. Just got pointed to this news story: BBC News – Closing hospital windows ‘increases infection risk’. It reports on work from Cath Noakes from the University of Leeds. The work is published in a non open-access journal “Building and Environment” which I do not …