How to choose a metagenomic sequencing strategy – input wanted

So … what goes around comes around.  In 2003 and 2004, I spent a lot of time discussing and arguing with people about what would be the best strategy for making and sequencing Sanger libraries for metagenomic sequencing for the  Sargasso Sea metagenome study coordinated by the Venter Institute (I worked at TIGR at the time and …

Live/Dead Workshop Meeting Report

From May 13-14 2015 we hosted a “Live/Dead Workshop” here at UC Davis where we basically discussed a number of issues related to the topic of figuring out which bacteria are alive/viable in a given microbial community.   This is particularly important in the built environment where we suspect that many (most?) microbes are dead and …

Session on The Microbiome at American Health Care Journalism 2015 meeting

Just heading back (on the train) from the Association of Health Care Journalists 2015 which was in Santa Clara, where I participated in a session on The Microbiome. The session participants: Jonathan Eisen, Ph.D., professor, School of Medicine and College of Biological Sciences, University of California Susan Lynch, Ph.D., associate professor of medicine, University of California, …

Day 1 Report from “Citizen Science 2015” conference

I’m currently attending the inaugural conference of the Citizen Science Association… “Citizen Science 2015“.   Over 650 participants from around the world have arrived in San Jose to talk about all the various flavors and implications of citizen science.   It’s been a fascinating conference so far, not least because there’s very little agreement on what the …

microbiology of the Built Environment network (#microBEnet) 10/14 roundup and newsletter

We publish a newsletter every month here at microBEnet.  And I thought it would be good to also publish to the blog the various summaries and roundups from the newsletter.  Past newsletters are archived here.  Here are some of the highlights from this latest newsletter. MicroBEnet Blogs A summary of the recent topics posted on microBE.net …

Storify from Animals in the Built Environment 2014 Workshop

Last week, Holly Ganz from microBEnet organized a workshop on “Animals in the Built Environment”, focusing on the intersections between animal care, building design, and microbial ecology.  Participants included zoo staff,  shelter architects, engineers, microbial ecologists, etc.   More detailed meeting reports will follow, but as a teaser here is the Storify from the meeting: