Antimicrobial paints have a blind spot

Spore-forming bacteria survive on surfaces coated with antimicrobial, latex paints Antimicrobial paints kill most bacteria within 24 hours, but some survive Such products are typically tested on pathogens but not common bacteria like Bacillus Antimicrobial paints could favor antibiotic resistance — making harmless bacteria like Bacillus harmful EVANSTON, Ill. — Antimicrobial paints offer the promise of …

Lake Arrowhead Microbial Genomics Meeting (#LAMG2018) Day 3

Day 3 of the meeting was virus day!  Viruses have often gotten short shrift at these kinds of meeting, especially once 16S rRNA sequencing took over the microbial world.  But the balance is shifting back, largely because of metagenomics. First up was Andrew J. Hryckowian from Stanford University “Bacteriodes thetaiotaomicron as a Chassis for Understanding …

Special issue of mSystems: Essays by Early-Career Systems Microbiology Scientists

This should be of interest to many: mSystems has a whole issue dedicated to essays by “Early-Career Systems Microbiology Scientists”. Early-Career Systems Microbiology Scientists Jack A. Gilbert mSystems March/April 2018 3:e00002-18; doi:10.1128/mSystems.00002-18 http://msystems.asm.org/content/3/2/e00002-18   Conflict of Interest Declarations by Contributing Editors of the Special Issue on Early-Career Systems Microbiology Scientists, Sponsored by Janssen Human Microbiome …

One last call for help with Sloan-funded MoBE paper collection

Back in September we posted a call for help with our “comprehensive” database of publications resulting from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation program in the Microbiology of the Built Environment.   We’ve tried database scanning, begging people for help, public posting, manually digging through Google Scholar, grant reports, etc.  Our hope is to use this collection …

Postdoctoral positions in engineering the microbiome – Cornell University

The Brito Lab at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY works in the area of systems biology of the human microbiome. We are looking for talented postdocs to fill two open positions for postdoctoral researchers interested in investigating mechanistic linkages between microbes and human health outcomes. Postdoctoral candidates can have an experimental or computational background, or both. One of …

Sloan-funded MoBE Reference Collection

So one of my projects for the last few months has been to try to create a collection of every peer-reviewed publication that resulted from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation program of the Microbiology of the Built Environment.  The program has been running for over 10 years and has funded over 100 grants.  To generate …

10th World Conference of Science Journalists (#WCSJ17) in October in SF has a lot on microbes …

So this looks like a very very good meeting.  Source: Schedule – 10th World Conference of Science Journalists, San Francisco 2017 As a science writer, blogger, Tweeter, etc, it seems of great interest to me, even though I am not sure whether I would classify in any way as a science journalist.  Regardless, if you …

Dirty money: interesting data but unclear what implications are

OK.  So money has microbes on it.  Not surprising.  And when people find out such information they frequently go overboard in the germophobia. See for example these stories from over the years 1999: Filthy Lucre – Paper Money As A Vector Of Disease 2010: Dirty money 1: Expect germs 2010: How Bad Are Germs on Money 2012: …

NASA. Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Award Fellowships to Study ISS Microbes 

Of interest: Source: Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Award Fellowships to Study ISS Microbes | NASA Fellow: Melissa Dsouza, University of Auckland, New Zealand PI-Advisor: Kasthuri Venkateswaran, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Investigating mechanisms for the acquisition and prevalence of antibiotic resistance genes in the ISS cultivable microbiome. Awarded by the NASA Space Biology Program. Fellow: Michael Lee, University of …