New papers on microbiology of the built environment, December 12, 2015

Here is a new set of papers that came out in the past week(s) that I posted at MicrobiomeDigest, but that I also wanted to share here. Three of these papers are from BMC’s Microbiome journal, which recently has published several other built environment microbiology papers, so it’s worth checking out. Microbes in buildings Moisture …

A cloud of cloud things for detecting clouds

For the past couple of years, there has been a storm gathering on the horizon of indoor air quality monitoring. Nucleating around crowd-funding sites such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo, these devices seem to advect along roughly similar trajectories. The teams working on these projects have created a sort of high pressure system wafting high-quality industrial …

Norovirus Aerosolization Research Using Vomit Machine

A big question many scientists have been seeking to answer is if norovirus, a common cause of gastroenteritis, is aerosolized. This could possibly occur when an infected host vomits. A new paper in PLoS one tests just that, using a vomiting machine with a clay face on it and a bacteriophage surrogate for norovirus to simulate the …

American Association for Aerosol Research (AAAR) abstract deadline May 1st

Here’s a summary of the conference: Join your colleagues from around the world to participate in platform and poster presentations, symposia, and plenary lectures which highlight the latest advances in aerosol science and technology! Special symposia this year will address the following topics: Primary and Secondary Aerosols from Agricultural Operations; The Role of Water in …

Job Posting (Grad Student) at Virginia Tech studying aerosol microbiology

Just received the following job posting from Linsey Marr at Virgina Tech: The Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Virginia Tech invites applications for a Ph.D. student to study the influence of environmental conditions and aerosol chemistry on the infectivity of airborne bacteria and viruses. Contact Dr. Linsey C. Marr at lmarr@vt.edu to find …

“DNA-based methods for bioaerosol analysis” – great resource!

Jordan Peccia has posted the slides from his tutorial, Molecular methods for bioaerosol analysis on Slideshare. If you would like to get a quick overview of molecular-biology based methods, this is a painless, accessible way to do it. You are encouraged to post your comments and questions after you review the slideshow. We hope to …

Postdoc opening at Virginia Tech: Survival of airborne microbes

The Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Virginia Tech invites applications for a postdoctoral researcher to study the influence of aerosol chemistry on the infectivity of airborne influenza viruses. The successful candidate must hold a doctoral degree and demonstrate appropriate background in environmental engineering, atmospheric chemistry, biology, biomedical engineering, chemical engineering, or mechanical engineering. …

Lessons learned: The microbes all around us and our buildings — and Jessica Green’s Nautilus article

Illustration (from OpenScar.com) an explanation of the beginning of the spread of SARS in Hong Kong’s Amoy Gardens apartment complex where the index case was in a building 60 meters away from a building where about 45% of the 300 infected individuals at Amoy Gardens lived. Many of the other infected individuals also lived in …

Database of indoor environment-indoor microbiome literature available

You can download the database of over 360 publications that report characteristics of the indoor environment along with the microbes found in the studies. Each publication is entered as a record and includes citation, abstract, keywords, organisms, substrates, and environmental conditions as reported by the authors. The database in MS Access format is searchable for …

EPA Report: Determination of the Sampling Efficiency of Biosamplers to Collect Inhalable Particles

Interested in learning more about air sampling in the built environment?  Then check out the Google Hangout with several researchers on the topic posted on microBEnet. Interested in even more detail?  Then check out the EPA report entitled “Determination of the Sampling Efficiency of Biosamplers to Collect Inhalable Particles”