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 …

Reasonably cautious but optimistic editorial on “The human microbiome: an emerging tool in forensics” 

I have personally been interested in microbial forensics of various kinds for quite a while (I worked at TIGR for many years and was peripherally involved in some of the anthrax DNA sequencing and analysis there).  I have even served on various working groups from the US Government discussing the potential for microbes to be …

US Program Seeks Comments on Connections Between Climate Change & Human Health

There are many possible ways in which climate change could impact human health.  The U. S. Global Change Research Program has issued a new draft report on this topic and is soliciting public comments about this report (see USGCRP Climate for more information). The report is The Impacts of Climate Change on Human Health in the United States: …

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), …

More than just a fingerprint-our microbes are efficient hotel “cleaners,” too!

Think hotel rooms are gross?  An elegant study led by Jack Gilbert, published Thursday in Science Reports, suggests that our resident microbes could help ease our minds on this issue, as they very quickly populate hotel rooms (and houses, more on that below) to make our hotels microbiologically identical to our homes within 24 hours. …