Today & tomorrow – live webcast – Standards for Microbiome Measurements @NIST

Definitely worth checking this out. NIST is running a meeting on Standards for Microbiome Measurements From the site: This workshop will seek input on defining reference materials, reference data and reference methods for human microbiome community measurements. This workshop is sponsored by NIST and NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the Human Microbiome …

Mick Watson (@BioMickWatson) is on a mission – collecting papers about bias in microbiome studies 

So I just saw this Tweet @BioMickWatson can’t find paper I’m thinking of, but OTU calling software/algorithm matters a lot – David Baltrus (@surt_lab) August 6, 2016 So I went to Mick Watson’s site and saw this: This is my attempt to collate the literature on how easy it is to introduce bias into microbiome …

Project to study sea turtle microbiomes in captivity and in the wild

Professor Aubrey Tauer of City University of New York, LaGuardia Community College is running an crowdfunding campaign to support research conducted by her non-profit organization to better understand how sea turtle microbiomes vary in captivity and in wild populations. I asked her to write up something for microBEnet about the project. The campaign ends next week, so check it out …

Microbial Effects on Asthma

Two reviews came out recently by Mutius et al and Smits et al discussing the link between microbes and asthma. Sadly, they are not open access. Both reviews suggest that exposure to microbially rich environments helps build the immune response and inflammation systems. The Mutius et al paper drew from research conducted on urban environmental microbiology using DNA fingerprinting to characterize indoor …

Microbiome Art by Joana Ricou

We’ve written about Joana Ricou before on this blog, and here she is again. This time with an exhibit featuring oil paintings representing human bodies and their microbiomes. The linked article also includes a video of Ricou discussing her work, which has been featured on the cover of a scientific journal and strives to combine science and art in …