Microbial sampling starts in Cherokee Homes

(This is a guest post by Jordan Peccia at Yale University) After a six-month period of home recruitment, surface and aerosol sampling campaigns have begun in an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation indoor microbiome sponsored project awarded to Tulsa and Yale Universities. The goal of this proposed research is to explore how two central and modifiable …

Sarah Zhang updates “What I Learned From Sequencing the Bacteria in My Apartment”

. Sarah Zhang at Wired has updated her post from three years ago about bacteria in her apratment with reference to a new study just published from the Wildlife of Your Homes study of bacteria and fungi in homes.  Definitely worth a look. Source: What I Learned From Sequencing the Bacteria in My Apartment | …

CO2 and ventilation rate measurements from Day 1 of MoBE 2015

This is just a quick posting of some building science data that I collected during Day 1 of the 4th Annual Conference on the Microbiology of the Built Environment in Boulder, CO. I setup a couple of our Open Source Building Science Sensors (OSBSS) in the front corner of the room before the conference convened yesterday and left …

Inside Philanthropy covers the BioBE Center and Sloan MoBE Program 

Just a quick post.  There is a story of interest at “Inside Philanthropy” on the Sloan Foundation MoBE (microbiology of the built environment) Program and the renewal of the BioBE center project.  See Sloan’s Deep (and Kind of Gross) Probe Into the Microbes Crawling All Around You – Inside Philanthropy: Fundraising Intelligence – Inside Philanthropy Although I …

Modeling microbial metabolism on indoor surfaces

We have recently been awarded a new research program by the Alfred P Sloan Foundation to further develop out understanding of how bacterial, archaeal, viral and fungal communities interact on indoor surfaces. This research will be led by Jack Gilbert (University of Chicago), in collaboration with Chris Henry (UChicago), Brent Stephens (Illinois Institute of Technology), …

What sequencing core do you recommend for environmental samples with low concentrations?

Have you ever wondered what’s in the air of a daycare center, where kids swap microbes every day? A team from Virginia Tech and the University of Pittsburgh is investigating the viral ecology in air of a daycare center using metagenomics. We have collected samples on HVAC filters and are looking for a sequencing core …

Sloan Foundation funds an Indoor Microbiome Workshop in Finland

The Alfred P. Sloan foundation has approved a grant to organize a workshop on indoor microbiome in Finland in Fall 2015.  The workshop is designed for a scientific exchange including a workshop and researcher exchanges that will bridge the Sloan grantees in US and Canada with the research groups in Finland and neighboring countries.  The workshop organizing committee, …

Microbiomes and the Athletic Arena: Indoor Track Facility Microbiome in conjunction with Salivary and Nostril Microbiomes of Indoor/Outdoor Runners (MoBE Postdoctoral Fellowship)

Microbiome studies involving sports, especially non-contact sports, have yet to become a focus of basic or clinical research. Studying indoor track facilities and the athletes that use them has the potential to demonstrate human effects on the microbiome of a built environment and reciprocated effects of the built environment on the human microbiome; this using …