Μικροβιολογία / Microbiology

Meet the Microbiologist is a podcast hosted by Julie Wolf, Ph.D., that showcases the people behind the scientific discoveries. Each guest introduces their research in one of the cutting-edge areas of the microbial sciences: genomics, antibiotic resistance, synthetic biology, emerging infectious diseases, microbial ecology, public health, probiotics, and more!

Welcome to Small Things Considered! This blog shares the excitement of unexpected and unusual stories of the microbial world. The main contributors to this blog are listed on your right. But we do not just publish our own content, we have many contributions from students, postdocs, and others. We enjoy this, in part because theirs is a world where scientific communication will increasingly involve social media. And this blog is a social medium. Don’t think that we do this to avoid work. We are dedicated editors who spend a lot of time going over the material we receive. We are eager to hear from you, so send us your comments, criticisms, submissions, ideas, or whatever else comes into your mind. Thank you for visiting.

Are you a company, lab or researcher planning a new microbiome study? If so, you are probably considering whether to conduct 16S rRNA gene sequencing or shotgun metagenomic sequencing. Although 16S rRNA gene sequencing has been more commonly used for microbiome studies to date, shotgun metagenomics is becoming more accessible and popular in microbiome research. However, each method has its pros and cons which should be considered before you decide which sequencing method to use. Here is your one-stop guide to 16S rRNA gene sequencing vs shotgun sequencing to help you generate the best data for your research.

Here you can explore the comprehensive and entirely free selection of teaching resources provided by the International Microbiology Literacy Initiative (IMiLI) that will inspire, excite and inform children and adults alike about microbes and their activities.

Think “we” not “me.”

I Contain Multitudes offers a new lens on life. With an eye on microbes—microscopic single-celled organisms—larger creatures such as ourselves suddenly look very different. Each of us is a more of a society than an individual. Only about half the cells in or on our bodies are human. The rest make up a menagerie of microbes. Microbes produce chemicals and vitamins that we can’t produce on our own, they help digest food, shape development, and influence behavior.

Ed Yong, author of the New York Times bestseller I Contain Multitudes, has teamed up with HHMI Tangled Banks Studios for a series that explores the strange, wondrous, and vital realm of the microscopic. Meet scientists and the microbes that captivate them. Watch fascinating animal behavior that makes sense only in light of a microbial backstory. Discover how the living world that we see is shaped by an invisible world. Our embrace of microbes, and theirs of us, is a pillar of life on Earth.

I'm Vincent Racaniello, Earth's virology Professor and I believe that education should be free. It's my goal to teach virology and other life sciences to the world. Here you'll find my lectures at Columbia University, our science shows This Week in Virology, This Week in Parasitism, This Week in Microbiology, This Week in Evolution, Immune, This Week in Neuroscience, Infectious Disease Puscast, Beyond the Noise, interviews that I've done with microbiologists, livestreams and more. Subscribe and stay tuned for future awesome science content.

Meet the Microbiologist is a podcast hosted by Ashley Hagen, M.S., that showcases the people behind the scientific discoveries. Each guest introduces their research in one of the cutting-edge areas of the microbial sciences: genomics, antibiotic resistance, synthetic biology, emerging infectious diseases, microbial ecology, public health, probiotics and more!

The Bacterial Diversity Database BacDive is the worldwide largest knowledge base of standardized bacterial information. It has been selected as an ELIXIR Core Data Resource as well as a Global Core Biodata Resource. Its mission is to mobilize and make freely available strain-level research data from various sources. Major sources are internal files from culture collections (e.g. CABI, CCUG, CIP, DSMZ, JCM, KCTC) and extensive data manually extracted from species descriptions. Today, BacDive offers 2.6 million data points on 97,334 strains, including 20,060 type strains. Over 1000 data fields cover the topics taxonomy, morphology, physiology, metabolism, origin, biosafety, sequence data, and cultivation. Powerful tools such as the Advanced Search or the Isolation Source Search allow users to easily find strains based on their characteristics, e.g. strains that grow under certain conditions or strains isolated from a specific environment. The RESTful API and a SPARQL endpoint provide expert access to perform large-scale analysis on knowledge provided by BacDive.

Explore the microbiome of the world

The Global Preparedness Monitoring Board (GPMB) is an independent monitoring and accountability body to ensure preparedness for global health crises. Comprised of political leaders, agency principals and world-class experts, the Board provides an independent and comprehensive appraisal for policy makers and the world about progress towards increased preparedness and response capacity for disease outbreaks and other emergencies with health consequences. In short, the work of the GPMB will be to chart a roadmap for a safer world.

Created in response to recommendations by the UN Secretary General’s Global Health Crises Task Force in 2017, the GPMB was co-convened by the World Health Organization and the World Bank Group and formally launched in May 2018. The GPMB is led by its co-chairs, Elhadj As Sy, the Secretary General of the IFRC, and Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland, former Prime Minister of Norway and former WHO Director-General.

Usually, show business depicts viruses, bacteria, and other microorganisms as one of the worse menaces to mankind. Entertainment movies influence the way audiences understand and perceive these topics. Few films accurately portray the science of microbiology and its social implications. Movies and TV series often feature outbreaks of deadly diseases and the efforts of scientists and medical professionals to contain them. However, entertainment movies can also be used to educate the public about the importance and the impact that microorganisms have on our lives, helping to increase public awareness and appreciation of the world of microbiology. The aim of this review is to show the relationship between movies and microbiology, from the fight against diseases such as AIDS or tuberculosis, to the zombie apocalypse.

When you think of microbial growth, what colors do you imagine?

I’m guessing it is the green of mildew, the brown of rot, the white of sore throat pustules.

I imagine it is not the cerulean of the soil microbe that makes our antibiotics, the cotton candy pink microbe that produces life-saving statins, the orange fungus that helps plants stay healthy, the midnight black of the fungus that makes vitamins for us, or the unctuous white of the microbe that makes sourdough taste so tart and lovely.

The microbes around us naturally produce a rainbow of colors. To display this with some whimsy, I gave a set of 48 Crayola(R) brand crayons a make-over, relabeling them with the microbes that create this biological palette.

Below are the 48 microbes, including the fungi, bacteria, and archaea with a bit of information on how we interact with them, and links to their natural colors. This is just a glimpse into the microbes that make our world colorful.

Welcome to the colors of your biological cosmos.

The aim of the Bad Bugs Book Club is to get people interested in science, specifically microbiology, by reading books (novels) in which infectious disease forms some part of the story.

We also try to associate books, with some other activity or event, to widen interest and to broaden impact. Our bookclub comprises both microbiologists and members of the general public. We felt that this would encourage some discussion on the science – accuracy, impact etc – as well as about the book. 

We have established a fairly fluid membership of our bookclub and we hope to encourage others to join, to set up their own bookclub, suggest books and accompanying activities to us, and give feedback about the books that they have read, using our website as the focus for communication. So please get in touch!

 For further infomation, or if you have any queries, please contact Joanna Verran: J.Verran@mmu.ac.uk 

What Is Agar Art?

Microbes are essential for sustaining life in our planet. Also, we use microbes for multiple processes like food fermentation, production of antibiotics and other drugs, biofuel production, biomining and so forth. However, this essential role is scarcely represented in commercial movies. Although films are an artistic recreation of reality, we must not forget that they fix in the public's imagination the cliché that ‘microbes are bad’. In this article, some commercial movies that depict the beneficial biotechnological use of microorganisms are discussed as tools to be used in education and to engage general audiences, countering germophobia, and encourage them in the path of ‘positive microbiology’.

Since 1997, Infectious Awareables has been creating unique, science-based products designed to promote awareness of important public health issues. Their mission is threefold: to generate interest, discussion - even excitement, to support the efforts of those involved in research and education. Each year, IA contributes a portion of its proceeds to organizations that are dedicated to research, education or treatment.
On the reverse side of every tie you’ll find a “Learning Note” and scientific image source credits.
A portion of the proceeds from every purchase goes toward research and education.

ZBiotics is the world’s first genetically engineered probiotic to break down a toxic byproduct of alcohol called acetaldehyde. The formula? Three years of research and development, plus a dash of water and natural flavor