So you want to run FACS on your microbiome samples… By Cara Pardon Although optimized for eukaryotic cell research, an increasingly common technique used in the microbiome field is Fluorescence Activated Cell Sorting (FACS). From sorting cells for single cell genomics to identifying the host range of a plasmid; from detecting metabolically active cells in …
Early-life microbial exposure has been recognized to have a crucial role in immune development. Exposure in the actual infant breathing zone (BZ), influenced by the resuspension of floor dust, however, is little explored. Two recently published papers tackle this issue by assessing infant exposure to biological particulate matter (fluorescent biological aerosol particles, FBAPs) and microbial …
Legionella is a bacterium found in drinking water distributions systems, as well as premise plumbing, hot tubs, hot water heaters, cooling towers, and other building water systems. At high enough concentrations and when inhaled, Legionella can cause Legionnaires’ disease and Pontiac fever, the former of which can be fatal if infected people are not treated …
Captain William A. Pratt, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, invites interested MoBE community members to discuss collaborative opportunities for three troop construction projects to be initiated in the next 6 months: * Bunkhouse construction project: opportunities to discuss building design options, indoor microbial monitoring * Lighting project for an existing structure: UV light testing, …
An update on this story Managing Legionella in Water Systems Nominate Experts for an Upcoming Consensus Project The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine will undertake a project on the management of Legionella in water systems. An ad hoc committee will review the state of science with respect to Legionella contamination of water systems and issue a report that will: describe the microbial …
Federico Lauro, Chris Mason and I (and a few others by now) are looking for editors for a Frontiers Special Topic on Citizen Science in Microbiology. It is important to us that we assemble a diverse panel of editors before we start inviting submissions! We are especially interested in making sure that women and people …
When I first started working in Dr. Jonathan Eisen’s lab my junior year of college, I was assigned a pretty open ended task. Swab something from the built environment and see what grows. This being the first time I was actually doing research, I was incredibly excited to go out and swab the world. My …
There are a number of cases where determining the relationship between microbes is at the center of a research question. Are the microbes inhabiting a building the same as those inhabiting its tenants? Are the microbes in a hospital room the same as those that colonize newborn babies? Is the E. coli living on a …
As part of the Healthy Buildings 2015 America Conference, there was a technical session on Indoor Microbiome Research where we discussed strategies on, among other things, how to sample and analyze bioaerosols using modern high throughput sequencing techniques. In that workshop, we did a small exercise highlighting the potential for humans to transport microbes into …
The Department of Statistics at Oregon State University is hosting a summer REU (Research Experiences for Undergraduates) program that focuses on microbiome data analysis. This is a unique, paid research and training opportunity for STEM undergraduate students who want an interdisciplinary research experience in both biology and statistics. During a ten week training period, students will be …