Sloan Foundation’s Indoor Environment Symposium at Indoor Air 2014

Sloan Symposium at Indoor Air 2014 The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Program on Microbiology of the Built Environment has awarded a grant to Indoor Air 2014, the 13th International Conference on Indoor Air Quality and Climate, to be held in Hong Kong from July 7-12, 2014. Paraphrasing a quote on the conference web site from …

New Sloan Funded Project: “The Effects of Surface pH on Microbial Community Composition and Susceptibility to Invasion”

The most recent Sloan-funded project began work in the lab of Roberto Kolter in early July.   The name of the project is “The Effects of Surface pH on Microbial Community Composition and Susceptibility to Invasion”.  Unlike many of the previous projects funded by the microbiology of the built environment program, this is an experimental lab …

New Sloan Foundation funded project: The House Dust Fungal Microbiome — Influences and Effects

Just received an announcement that a new project has been funded through the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation’s program in the Microbiology of the Built Environment. The project is titled “The House Dust Fungal Microbiome — Influences and Effects.” and the PI is Susan V. Lynch from UCSF.  She kindly sent us a summary description of the …

New Project in the Microbiology of the Built Environment: Jordan Peccia

The next of the new Sloan foundation funded projects in the field is being undertaken by Jordan Peccia at Yale University and is entitled “Qualitative Building Moisture Characteristics and Microbial Diversity” Project description below: There exists a significant gap in our understanding of how the building environment mediates human exposure to bacterial and fungal diversity. …

New Project in Microbiology of the Built Environment: Kyle Bibby

The Sloan Program in the Microbiology of the Built Environment awarded a few new grants this spring.   The first of these was to Kyle Bibby at the University of Pittsburgh called “Microbial Ecology Dynamics of Hospital Premise Plumbing Following the Introduction of an On-Site Monochloramine Disinfection System”.  The project is being conducted in collaboration with …

Meeting Report: Sloan Conference on the Microbiology of the Built Environment (May 22-24th 2013)

This meeting is an annual gathering to bring together all of the Sloan grantees, their labs, and other stakeholders in the field to discuss the status of the microbiology of the built environment program.   Thanks again to Mark Hernandez and Alina Handorean for all their hard work in putting it together.  Note that I will …

New funding opportunity in its Microbiology of the Built Environment (MoBE) program.

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation has created a new funding opportunity in its Microbiology of the Built Environment (MoBE) program. The Foundation seeks to further the development of talented early stage Ph.D. scientists and engineers by establishing the Microbiology of the Built Environment (MoBE) Postdoctoral Fellowship program. The program will provide support for postdoctoral researchers …

“…antibiotic resistance genes may be transported via aerosols on local scales”

In their just published paper in Environmental Science & Technology, “Tetracycline Resistance and Class 1 Integron Genes Associated with Indoor and Outdoor Aerosols,” Alison L. Ling, Norman R. Pace, Mark T. Hernandez, and Timothy M. LaPara have found that genes escape the indoor environment and can be found 2 km away. The abstract can be …