Tomorrow all day there will be a meeting at AAAS HQ on “Microbiomes of the Built Environment“. I will be speaking at the meeting, and this is one of my major research areas, so I am a bit biased, but the meeting is going to be great I think. And it will be webcast live. So I recommend everyone watch if you won’t be there. The link to the WebCast will be posted tomorrow here (in the upper right where it currently says “Program”). If you are new to this area or want a refresher I thought I would put together a list of some resources that might help you get caught up. I note – I just put this together on my flight to Washington DC for the meeting and, alas, internet came in and out, so apologies if anything major is left out. Anyway – here are some links …
Major Programs and Collections of Information on the Topic
- The microbiology of the Built Environment network (aka microBEnet). No bias here at all. I am the PI on this project but I think (and hope) that there are a lot of resources here that are of use to people.
- Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Program in Microbiology of the Built Environment. General information about the projects funded by Sloan in this area.
- Biology and the Built Environment Center (BioBE) at University of Oregon.
- Building Ecology site (from Hal Levin)
Some review papers, blog posts, and news stories
- Studying — not wantonly killing — the microbes around us and the rise of the “microbiology of the built environment” – blog post by me about some of the history of the field
- Nautilus: Meet the Neighbors you Will Never See
- Jessica Green: Can Bioinformed Design Promote Healthy Indoor Ecosystems? – commentary in Indoor Air.
- Ecosystem Sweet Ecosystem in the Boston Globe by Courtney Humphries
- Jacques Ravel and Erik Wommack editorial
- Who’s been sitting in my chair? The microbes that live indoors blog post by Ben Johnson from BioMed Central
- Mapping the Great Indoors by Peter Andrey Smith in the New York Times.
- Studying the microbiology of the indoor environment by Scott Kelley and Jack Gilbert.
Individual Project pages:
Social Media on microbiology of the built environment
- microBEnet blog
- Twitter list of people working in this area
- microbiology of the built environment LinkedIn group
- possible hashtags to use for posts on this topic
- Facebook Page
Catching up and keeping up with the literature
- Microbiology of the Built Environment Mendeley Group
- Curated reference collection by Hal Levin et al. (see more detail here)
- Google Scholar pages for people working in this area. And instructions on how to subscribe to their citations and publications.
Some videos to watch
- Jessica Green at TED: Are we filtering the wrong microbes?
- microBEnet YouTube channel
- microBEnet Vimeo group
Some other links of interest
Now everyone – sing it with me
Who are the microbes in your neighborhood?
In your neighborhood.
In your neigh-bor-hood.
Say – Who are the microbes in your neighborhood?
The microbes that you meet each day.