Journal Club: “Initial Mapping of the New York City Wastewater Virome”

While not about COVID19 directly, this paper “Initial Mapping of the New York City Wastewater Virome” has implications for the many many folks looking at SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater these days.  This work is looking at all the viruses in the wastewater system and is one of relatively few metagenomic studies out there that focuses on …

Another “more germs than a toilet seat” study and resultant media explosion

I’m torn between wanting to ignore this story and wanting to attack the media reports on the study.   I think I’ll compromise on a minimum set of complaints. Firstly, the paper itself (“Deposition of respiratory virus pathogens on frequently touched surfaces at airports“) is more or less fine.   The authors used real-time PCR to look …

Who are the microbes in your neighborhood mice? In your neighborhood mice? In your neighborhood mice?

  Just a quick post here pointing people to some new papers of potential interest.  The papers in are mBio and are from Ian Lipkin’s lab (with others) on bacteria and viruses in mice in New York City papers in mBio Viral Diversity of House Mice in New York City mBio 9:2 march/april 2018; doi:10.1128/mBio.01354-17 New York …

This should be awesome. NeLLi 2017: From New Lineages of Life To New Functions #NeLLi17

This meeting should be awesome (no bias here – just one of the external coorganizers). April 5-6, 2017 – Marriott Hotel, Walnut Creek, CA The workshop aims to foster discussions centered on how to capture, define, quantify, and functionally characterize microbial and viral diversity. It focuses on experimental innovations, computational advances, and other technological developments that will enable researchers to …

#microBEnet News: @kylejbibby receives @NSF CAREER award to study viruses in water

Just found out via Twitter about a cool new grant that was awarded: Congrats to Kyle Bibby @kylejbibby on this NSF grant!#microbenet @SloanFoundation https://t.co/x1slHgygdT — Paula Olsiewski (@polsiewski) March 1, 2017   Through a five-year, $500,000 CAREEER Award from the National Science Foundation, a civil and environmental engineering research group at the University of Pittsburgh’s …

Genomic Standards Consortium 19 in Australia May 2017 registration open (focus on viruses & microbial euks)

I thought this would be of interest – got it by email We are happy to announce that registration for GSC19 is now open! https://www.regonline.com/builder/site/?eventid=1913695 The meeting will take place at the Stamford Plaza, Brisbane, Australia between 15th-17th May, 2017. The theme of the meeting will be Extending Standards to Viruses and Microbial Eukaryotes. The …

GSC19 (Brisbane, Australia) Registration is Open !!

We are happy to announce that registration for GSC19 is now open !! Theme:  Extending Standards to Viruses and Microbial Eukaryotes Date: May 15th-17th, 2017 Location: Stamford Plaza, Brisbane, Australia Host: Philip Hugenholtz           Australian Centre for Ecogenomics, University of Queensland The agenda is packed with exciting sessions and topics: Viral classification and …

Paper of interest: Environmental Viral Metagenomics Analyses in Aquaculture

Just a quick post here.  Studies of the microbiology of built environments that house animals (e.g., aquaria, farms, animal shelters, zoos, etc) are of growing interest for multiple reasons.  In that regard this paper might be of interest to some – because it covers some topics that are sometimes neglected in this general area – viral diversity …

Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Workshop on Viruses to be Held in Singapore, January 2017

(posted on behalf of Jordan Peccia) Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Workshop on Viruses to be Held in Singapore, January 2017 The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation has approved a grant to host a two-day workshop in Singapore on the topic of infectious viral disease in the built environment. Objectives of the workshop include identifying the key …

New papers on microbiology of the built environment, June 24, 2016

Microbes and citizen science Video: Citizen Science and Mapping the Microbiome – Eric J. Topol interviews Jessica Richman – Medscape (OA) In this One-on-One, Medscape editor-in-chief Eric Topol talks with Jessica Richman about the value of citizen science as well as her company, uBiome, which provides microbiome analyses to consumers and plans to begin providing …