Job Post: Senior Chemist – Healthy Home at Bissell Corporation

The Senior Chemist – Healthy Home is responsible for development of next-generation technologies for the creation and management of a healthy home environment and microbiome, leveraging BISSELL’s unique position as a developer of both cleaning devices and chemical/natural based formulations. They assist in building department and product strategies, as well as being a liaison to …

Journal Club: “Home chemical and microbial transitions across urbanization”

Another really interesting paper from Maria Dominguez-Bello and her lab and colleagues, “Home chemical and microbial transitions across urbanization”.  They’ve done some fascinating work in the past on the microbiome changes across an urbanization gradient and here they expand that work to include a bunch of chemistry data.  Definitely worth a read for anyone interested …

The report from Kaunas: ISES-ISIAQ 2019

Last week, the International Societies of Exposure Science and Indoor Air Quality had their joint meeting in Kaunas, Lithuania. The meeting featured a lot of great research on topics ranging from the thermal comfort of clothes to exposure to heavy metals from e-cigarettes and everything in between. While we can’t summarize the whole meeting here, …

Chemistry in Indoor Environments Symposium Sept. 19 in DC w/ Livestream 

This looks like it should be good.   American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Symposium on the Chemistry in Indoor Environments Sponsored by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation #aaascie #indoorchem September 19, 2019 AAAS Headquarters 1200 New York Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20005 Chemistry in Indoor Environments Symposium | American Association for the …

Integration of Biology and Chemistry for Indoor Environmental Quality at ISES-ISIAQ 2019

By Pudelek (Marcin Szala) – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link The International Societies for Exposure Science and Indoor Air Quality are having a joint meeting August 18-22, 2019 in Kaunas, Lithuania. Grantees from both the Microbiology of the Built Environment and Chemistry of Indoor Environments programs will feature in several sessions. In addition, there …

Really important and interesting: Large scale experiment probes chemistry inside our homes

News story about the fascinating and important new project on chemistry of the home.  This is being supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation in their new Chemistry of the Built Environment program. Dozens of analytical instruments have spent a month observing the chemistry of the air inside a three bed house Source: Large scale …

What is the Exposome of the Built Environment and What are the Opportunities for Intentional Design?

  Researchers at Virginia Tech’s Center for Science and Engineering of the Exposome (SEE) recently published a critical review in ES&T examining the “exposome of the built environment” and proposed engineering strategies for its control. The exposome is defined as our lifetime exposure to chemicals, microbes, and radiation and derives from anything we come into …

“House dust spurs growth of fat cells in lab tests”

While not directly related to microbiology, this story about house dust caught my eye.   The title of the press release really says it all, “House dust spurs growth of fat cells in lab tests”.   Looks like the probable guilty compounds are man-made things like fire retardants but there’s certainly a possibility for microbially produced volatiles …

Sloan Foundation-funded workshops at Healthy Buildings Europe 2017

Next week, the Lublin University of Technology in Lublin, Poland will host the Healthy Buildings Europe conference. Over 300 scientists, engineers, and professionals will gather to present and discuss building science. The Sloan Foundation is sponsoring workshops at the meeting to bring together leaders in the field and advance the state of the science. A …

New papers on Microbiology of the Built Environment, April 23, 2017

Catching up after a couple of busy weeks. Microbes in the hospital Diversity changes of microbial communities into hospital surface environments – Rika Yano – Journal of Infection and Chemotherapy ($31.50)  Previous works have demonstrated considerable variability in hospital cleanliness in Japan, suggesting that contamination is driven by factors that are currently poorly controlled. We undertook 16S …