A primer on detecting indoor bioaerosols

One of the issues that was raised in the recent Microbiology of the Built Environment conference in Boulder was sampling, specifically what and how is the material collected for subsequent biological analysis. Industrial hygienists and those tackling questions of exposure have devoted a lot of time to developing methods for how to study the indoor …

“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 …

First Sampling for Project MERCCURI

Last week Jenna Lang, Russell Neches, and myself headed over to the Sacramento King’s basketball arena to collect samples before the game as part of project MERCCURI (a.k.a Microbes in Spaaaaace!). Our goals were: 1)To get culture samples, of which one representative will fly to the International Space Station (ISS) for the “microbial playoffs”. 2)To …

Discussion of surface sampling methods in the built environment (video) [Updated w/ notes]

Researchers from the University of Oregon, UC Berkeley, Cornell, and Texas looking at bacterial and fungal communities in the built environment had a great video discussion on our methods for surface sampling. Watch the video on YouTube Notes on the discussion and equipment used by each group should be coming soon. Thanks again to everyone …

Video Conference on Air Sampling Methods[Updated with notes]

Some of us doing bioaerosol sampling had a video conference to discuss methods in the field. The goal was to swap experiences, considerations, and ideas as the field moves forward. It was a great conversation among researchers from Berkeley, Oregon, Cornell, and Univ. of Texas. Summarized notes are in the works and will be uploaded …

“Challenges in Microbial Sampling in Indoor Environments” – Workshop Report Summary

An excellent workshop summary came out today entitled “Challenges in Microbial Sampling in Indoor Environments”.  Download the PDF here  This workshop was held Feb 14-15 2011 and was a collaboration between the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST), and Yale University. The purpose of the Challenges in Microbial Sampling …

Reports from Indoor Air 2011 sessions on microbiology of the built environment

I’m currently at Indoor Air 2011 sitting in on the Sloan Foundation-sponsored sessions on microbiology of the built environment.   There are a number of great talks taking place and we hope to post some more information in the form of slides later.  We’ll probably also post a more formal write-up about some of the discussions …