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Increasing Laboratory Capacity for TB Diagnosis With Aureliana Chambal
<p>ASM's Young Ambassador, Aureliana Chambal, discusses the high incidence of tuberculosis in Mozambique and how improved surveillance can help block disease transmission in low resource settings. </p> <h2>Ashley's Biggest Takeaways:</h2> <ul> <li>Mozambique is severely impacted by the TB epidemic, with one of the highest incidences in Africa (368 cases/ 100,000 people in the population).</li> <li>Human-adapted members of the <a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6433267/" target= "_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><em>Mycobacterium tuberculosis</em> complex (MTBC) belong to 7 different phylogenetic lineages</a>.</li> <li>These 7 lineages may vary in geographic distribution, and have varying impacts on infection and disease outcome.</li> <li>For decades, 2 reference strains have been used for TB lab research, H37Rv, which Chambal mentions, and Erdman. Both of these belong to TB Lineage 4.</li> <li>According to Chambal, the reference strains that we use for whole genome sequencing (worldwide) may be missing genes that are related the virulence (and/or resistance) of strains that are circulating in a given population and detected in clinical settings.</li> <li>Chambal is endeavoring to employ a new strain to control these analyses and better understand transmission dynamics in the community setting.</li> </ul> <h2>Featured Quotes: </h2> <p>The Schlumberger Foundation Faculty for the Future Fellowship is one of my proudest accomplishments for the 2023. I applied for this fellowship last year to pursue my Ph.D. It is a program that supports women coming from emerging and developing economies to pursue advanced research qualifications in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. I applied because I was looking to get more skills in microbiology, specifically tuberculosis, to pursue my Ph.D. at Nottingham Trent University.</p> <h3>Pathway to Microbiology Research</h3> <p>My trajectory is different because I have a bachelor’s in veterinary medicine. And during my undergrad, I always had more interest in the lab practice modules or disciplines. For the end of the [bachelor’s] project, I was looking to understand the anthelmintic effectiveness against the gastrointestinal parasites in goats. After I finished this project, I was looking to continue a related project, but unfortunately, I couldn't get work related to that..<br /> <br /> In 2016, I applied for the National Institutes of Health of Mozambique, which is one of the biggest research institutions in my home country. That's when I was selected to work at the north region of Mozambique, specifically at the Nampula Tuberculosis Reference Laboratory. And then I moved to the public health laboratory as well, where I had the opportunity to work in the microbiology section. So, to be honest, my passion for microbiology started when I had the first contact with the TB lab, and then I couldn't separate myself from this area, tuberculosis.<br /> <br /> In 2016, I had the opportunity to receive a mentorship. Our lab, the TB lab of Nampula, received mentorship from the American Society for Microbiology. And we worked with Dr. Shirematee Baboolal; she was the mentor of our lab. The main idea of the program was to get the lab accredited and to build technical capacity in the lab. And to be honest, at the time, I didn't have much experience in lab techniques to detect or diagnosis tuberculosis.<br /> <br /> And I said to Dr. Shirematee, “I don't have much experience in this area, so, I don't know if I will be able to help you to accomplish these goals.” And she said, “If you want to learn, I can teach you, and you can be one of the best in this area.”<br /> <br /> And then we started training with her. It was very interesting. The passion she passed to us about microbiology—and tuberculosis, in particular—was one of the triggers for my passion in this area. So, to be honest, Dr. Shirematee Baboolal was one of the persons that triggered my interest from tuberculosis. So, I have to say thank you to her!</p> <h3>Tuberculosis Genomic Diversity and Transmission Dynamics</h3> <p>Mozambique is one of the higher burden countries of tuberculosis. So, our population is about 33 million people. And the case rate is high, it is approximately 360 per 100,000 people in the population, which is equivalent to over 110,000, which is equivalent 211,000 cases in the population. So, while I was working for the TB lab, I always had the desire to understand more about the transmission of the disease in the community.<br /> <br /> And I felt like I didn't have enough skills to do that; I didn't the tools to do that. And I said, “Okay, let me try to look to improve the skills.” That's why for my master's degree I tried to understand the genomic diversity of <em>M. tuberculosis</em> and see how we can see the gene content diversity within the lineage for which is the most spread lineage worldwide, and is predominant in Mozambique. Afterwards, I tried to expand to the other lineages.<br /> <br /> When I finished my master's degree, I felt that it was still missing something. I had the information about [TB] diversity, but I didn't get the point about transmission itself. That's why, when I went back and applied for my Ph.D., I structured my current project to specifically look at transmission and transmission clusters in the community.<br /> <br /> I'm trying to see how we can expand the gold standard of whole genome sequencing to try to make it applicable for all settings, including the low resources settings where most TB cases happen.<br /> <br /> So, <em>M. tuberculosis</em> itself doesn't have a lot of diversity between strains and within strains, because [strains] are very monomorphic. But you can find some genes that are different, specifically from the reference strain that we use, which is H37Rv. In the reference strain for <em>M. tuberculosis</em>, we saw is that many genes are missing—genes that are related to virulence. So, this information can be tricky, because it's the reference that we use worldwide to analyze our samples that come from whole genome sequencing. If we have genes missing, we are not [seeing] the complete information about the virulence of the bacterial strain that is circulating. So, my analysis was trying to understand how we can employ a new strain (that has at least most of the genes that are present in the other screens of the lineage) to control our analysis.<br /> <br /> Whole genome sequencing requires a lot of computational resources. So, the main idea is to try to extend that pipeline to make applicable to use in all settings.<br /> <br /> In Mozambique, we have whole genome sequencing equipment at the central level of the country, and the demand is high. But there is a queue for processing the samples. So, if we have a pipeline that [makes it so] anyone is able to analyze the data, we can have the results quick, and we can have more information for the public health sector.<br /> <br /> And with transmission studies, you can have a clearer idea of where the recent infection happened. We can see how many cases we have and when the transmission started. And then we can [try to] track and block the transmission.</p> <h3>Involvement with ASM Young Ambassador Program</h3> <p>So, I had the opportunity to hear about ASM’s Young Ambassador Program while I was working at the TB lab, in 2018. I spoke to Dr. Shirematee Baboolal and Dr. Maritza Urrego. And they told me about this position. Then, once I finished my masters [program], I applied for that position. I saw the requirements, and I felt like it was the right position for what I wanted to do for my community—to support the youth community and engage with my community back in Mozambique. I applied in 2020, and I got the position.<br /> <br /> And I have to say, it is one of the best things I have done so far. Because since the implementation of this program in Mozambique, I have interacted with students in schools and universities. We have developed a lot of workshops. I feel like I can contribute scientifically to improve their lives, to improve their academic lives. And recently, we launched a program called <a href= "https://twitter.com/Yana66719423/status/1706231785657356305" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Microbiology Kids Club</a>. We go to schools, in church, and we teach children about science, specifically microbiology. We use cartoons and paint microbes to explain the importance of the microbes for the community for our daily activities. And it's very interesting how they are engaged. I can feel that it's a way to develop the taste for science in the children. So, I'm very happy with this accomplishment. In this role of young ambassador, I feel like I can contribute to my community back home.<br /> <br /> I have so many ideas, so many dreams. I don't even know where to start! Because I have the ambitions to support my country back home. After I finish my Ph.D., I would like to create a robust technique that will help us to properly understand the [TB] transmission studies. So hopefully, with my Ph.D., I will be able to do that, or at least contribute something to support not only my country, but all low resources settings.<br /> <br /> And I would also like to be like to support some public health policies that can help us. Because we don't have like a strong component that involves the lab, the public health sector—I feel like everything is separated. We need to combine everything if we want to fight against tuberculosis. So, my desire is also to create a link between all these specific sites so we can make our fight against TB stronger. I want to continue [to drive] awareness about the support we need in low resource settings to control the fight against tuberculosis.</p> <h2>Links for the Episode:</h2> <ul> <li><a href="https://asm.org/Programs/ASM-Ambassadors-Program">ASM Ambassador Program.</a></li> <li><a href="https://asm.org/Global-Health">ASM Global Public Health Program.</a></li> </ul>
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Good Science, Bad Science and How to Make it Better with Ferric Fang and Arturo Casadevall
<p><span style= "color: rgb(29, 28, 29); font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(248, 248, 248); text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; display: inline !important; float: none;"> The scientific process has the power to deliver a better world and may be the most monumental human achievement. But when it is unethically performed or miscommunicated, it can cause confusion and division. Drs. Fang and Casadevall discuss what is good science, what is bad science and how to make it better.</span></p> <p><span style= "font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Get the book! <a href="https://bit.ly/goodsciencebadscience">Thinking about Science: Good Science, Bad Science, and How to Make It Better</a></span></p>
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Using AI to Understand How the Gut-Brain Axis Points to Autism With James Morton
<p>Dr. James Morton discusses how the gut microbiome modulates brain development and function with specific emphasis on how the gut-brain axis points to functional architecture of autism.</p> <p>Watch James' talk from ASM Microbe 2023: Using AI to Glean Insights From Microbiome Data https://youtu.be/hUQls359Spo</p>
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Atypical Metabolism of Leishmania and Other Parasitic and Free-Living Protists With Michael Ginger
<p>Dr. Michael ginger, Dean of the School of Applied Sciences in the Department of Biological and geographical Science at the University of Huddersfield, in West Yorkshire, England discusses the atypical metabolism and evolutionary cell biology of parasitic and free-living protists, including Leishmania, Naegleria and even euglinids.</p>
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IBS Biomarkers and Diagnostic Diapers With Maria Eugenia Inda-Webb
<div dir="ltr" style= "line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><a href= "https://asm.org/Biographies/Maria-Eugenia-Inda-Webb,-Ph-D" target= "_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. Maria Eugenia Inda-Webb</a>, Pew Postdoctoral Fellow working in the Synthetic Biology Center at MIT builds biosensors to diagnose and treat inflammatory disorders in the gut, like inflammatory bowel disease and celiac disease. She discusses how “wearables,” like diagnostic diapers and nursing pads could help monitor microbiome development to treat the diseases of tomorrow.<br /> </div> <p>Subscribe (free) on <a href= "https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/meet-the-scientist/id289419806?mt=2&ls=1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href= "https://open.spotify.com/show/3gnWS7zGs3DWLUkewCJib2" target= "_blank" rel="noopener">Spotify</a>, <a href= "https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cDovL21lZXR0aGVzY2llbnRpc3QubWljcm9iZXdvcmxkLmxpYnN5bnByby5jb20vcnNz" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Google Podcasts</a>, <a href= "http://www.subscribeonandroid.com/meetthescientist.microbeworld.libsynpro.com/rss" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Android</a>, <a href= "http://meetthescientist.microbeworld.libsynpro.com/rss" target= "_blank" rel="noopener">RSS</a> or by <a href= "http://eepurl.com/c4MKHb" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">email</a>.</p> <h2>Ashley's Biggest Takeaways</h2> <ul> <li>Biosensors devices that engineer living organisms or biomolocules to detect and report the presence of certain biomarkers. </li> <li>The device consists of a bioreceptor (bacteria) and a reporter (fluorescent protein or light).</li> <li>Inda-Webb’s lab recently <a href= "https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06369-x" target= "_blank" rel="noopener">published a paper in <em>Nature</em> about using biosensors (Sub-1.4 cm3 capsule) to detect inflammatory biomarkers in the gut.</a> The work is focused on diagnosing and treating inflammatory bowel disease, but Inda-Webb acknowledged that that is a large research umbrella.</li> <li>The next step for this research is to monitor the use of the biosensor in humans to determine what chemical concentrations are biologically relevant and to show that it is safe for humans to ingest the device.</li> <li>It is believed that the gut microbiome in humans develops in the first 1000 days to 3 years of life.</li> <li>Early dysbiosis in the gut has been linked to disease in adulthood. However, we do not have a good way to monitor (and/or influence) microbiome development.</li> <li>Inda-Webb hopes to use biosensors in diapers (wearables) to monitor microbiome development and prevent common diseases in adulthood.</li> <li>In 2015, Inda-Webb became ASM’s first <a href= "https://asm.org/Events/ASM-Agar-Art-Contest/Home">Agar Art Contest</a> winner for her piece, “Harvest System.”</li> <li>Inda-Webb is the 2023 winner of the <a href= "https://asm.org/Academy/ASM-Award-for-Early-Career-Environmental-Research" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ASM Award for Early Career Environmental Research</a>, which recognizes an early career investigator with distinguished research achievements that have improved our understanding of microbes in the environment, including aquatic, terrestrial and atmospheric settings. <ul> <li>Learn More About <a href= "https://asm.org/Academy/Academy-awards-prize-program" target= "_blank" rel="noopener">ASM’s Awards Program</a></li> </ul> </li> </ul> <h2>Featured Quotes:</h2> <p>We engineer bacteria to sense particular molecules of interest—what we call biomarkers—if they are associated with a disease. And then, we engineer a way that the bacteria will produce some kind of molecule that we can measure—what we call reporter—so that could be a fluorescent protein or light, like the one that we have in this device.<br /> <br /> The issue is that inflammation in the gut is really very difficult to track. There are no real current technologies to do that. That is like a black box. And so, most of what we measure is what comes out from the gut, and has its limitations. It doesn't really represent the chemical environment that you have inside, especially in areas where you're inflamed. So, we really needed technologies to be able to open a window in these areas.<br /> <br /> The final device that I am actually bringing here is a little pill that the patient would swallow and get into the gut. And then they engineer bacteria that the biosensors, will detect, let's say, nitrous oxide, which is a very transient molecule. And the bacteria are engineered to respond to that in some way—to communicate with the electronics that will wirelessly transmit to your cell phone. And from there, to the gastroenterologist.<br /> <br /> We make the bacteria produce light. If they sense nitrous oxide, they produce light, the electronics read that, and the [information] finally gets into your phone.<br /> <br /> Part of the challenge was that we needed to make the electronics very very tiny to be able to fit inside the capsule. And also, the amount of bacteria that we use also is only one microliter. And so, imagine one microliter of bacteria producing a tiny amount of light. Finally, the electronics need to be able to read it. So that has been also part of the challenge.<br /> <br /> In this case, you have 4 different channels. One is a reference, and then the other 3 are the molecule of your choice. So, for example, what we show in the paper here is that we can even follow a metabolic pathway. So, you can see one more molecule turn into the other one, then into the other one. I'm really excited about that. Because normally we kind of guess as things are happening, you know, but here you can see in real time how the different molecules are changing over time. I think that's pretty exciting for microbiologist.<br /> <br /> The immediate application would be for a follow up. Let's say the patient is going to have a flare, and so you could predict it more much earlier. Or there's a particular treatment, and you want to see what is happening [inside the gut]. But for me, as a microbiologist, one of the things I'm most excited about will be more in the longer term.<br /> <br /> One of my favorite experiments that I do with the students is the Winogradsky column, and everyone gets super excited. So, we all have nice feelings for that. And it’s basically a column where we asked the students to bring mud from a lake, for example, and then some sources of nutrients. And then, after 6months, you will see all the layers, which is super pretty—beautiful, nice colors. But actually, that gives the concept of how the microenvironment helps to define where, or how, bacteria build communities.<br /> <br /> And so, what I think this device is going to do is to help us identify what is this microenvironment and to characterize that. And then, from there, to know if [an individual’s] microbiome is leaning towards the disease state, or if it's already in a serious or dangerous situation, to think about treatments that can lead to a more healthy state. So, I would just say it's really to have a window into the gut, and to be able to give personalized treatment for the patient.<br /> <br /> So, one application: I was thinking, I'm from the Boston area. So, one problem we have is getting a tick bite, right? After that, you could actually have to go through a very traumatic, antibiotic regime. I would imagine, in that case, you could [use the biosensor to] get the baseline [measurement], and then if you need to take these antibiotics, the doctors can follow how your microbiome is responding to that. Because one of the problems is that antibiotics changed the oxidation level [in the gut], and that really affects a lot the microbiome. To that point, for example, I get to know patients that they were athletes, and then, after antibiotic treatment, they have serious problems with obesity. Their life gets really messed up in many ways.<br /> <br /> And so, what I'm thinking is, if we could monitor earlier, there are a lot of ways that we could prevent that. We could give antioxidants; we could change the antibiotic. There are things that I think the doctor could be able to do and still do the treatment that we know.<br /> And of course, [although] we talk a lot about how much trouble antibiotics are, for certain things, we still need [them].<br /> <br /> [The multi-diagnostic diaper] is one of my pet projects. I really love it. So yeah, basically, the issue is that the microbiome develops in the first 3 years. People even say like, 1000 days, you know. But there's really no way to monitor that. And now we're seeing that actually, if the microbiome gets affected, there are a lot of diseases that you will see in adult life. So, if we will be able to monitor the microbiome development, I really believe that we'll be able to prevent many of the diseases of tomorrow.<br /> <br /> What happens is that babies wear diapers. So, I thought it was really a very good overlap. We call that “wearables,” you know, like devices that you can wear, and then from there, measure something connected with health.<br /> <br /> So, in the diaper, I was excited because—different from the challenge with the ingested device, which was so tiny—here, we don't have the limitation of space. So, we could measure maybe 1000 different biomarkers and see how that builds over time.<br /> <br /> We can measure so many things. One could be just toxic elements that could be in the environment. I try to do very grounded science, and so, my question is always, ‘what’s the actionable thing to do?’ So, I'm thinking if there was a lot of toxicity, for example, in the carpet, or in the environment where you live, those are the easiest things to change, right?<br /> <br /> Then also, other things connecting more with the metabolism. [Often] the parents don't know that the kid has metabolic issues. So, before that starts to build and bring disease, it would be best if you could detect it as early as possible. From there, with symbiotics, we are thinking there are a lot of therapies that could engineer bacteria to produce the enzymes that the kid can’t produce.<br /> <br /> We could also [develop] other products, like for example, a t-shirt to measure the sweat. I'm also thinking more of the milk. I'm very excited about how the milk helps to build the microbiome in the right way. And that that's a huge, very exciting area for microbiologists. And so, we could also have nursing pads that also measure [whether] the mother has the right nutrients.<br /> <br /> My family, my grandparents were farmers, and in Argentina, really the time for harvest is very important. You can see how the city and really the whole country gets very active. And at that time [during a course Inda-Webb was taking at Cold Spring Harbor] in this course, I could see that with yeast we were having a lot of tools that would allow us to be much more productive in the field. And I thought, ‘Oh, this feels like a harvest system for yeast.’ Yes. So that was how it [Inda-Webb’s winning agar artwork, ‘Harvest System’] came out.<br /> <br /> I really love the people. Here, [at <a href= "https://asm.org/Events/ASM-Microbe/Home">ASM Microbe</a> 2023], I really found that how people are bringing so much energy and really wanted to engage and understand and just connect to this idea of human flourishing, right, giving value to something, and saying, ‘okay, we can actually push the limits of what we know.’ How beautiful is that? And you know, we can learn from that. That was very exciting.<br /> <br /> <strong>ASM Agar Art Contest</strong><br /> <br /> Have you ever seen art created in a petri dish using living, growing microorganisms? That's agar art! ASM's annual Agar Art Contest is a chance for you to use science to show off your creative skills.<br /> <br /> Submissions Are Now Being Accepted!<br /> This year's contest theme is "Microbiology in Space." Head over to our <a href= "https://asm.org/Events/ASM-Agar-Art-Contest/Contest-Details">Contest Details page</a> to get all of the information about what you need to submit your entry. Submissions will be accepted until Oct. 28!</p> <h2>Links for the Episode:</h2> <ul> <li>Inda-Webb, et al. recent Nature publication: <a href= "https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06369-x" target= "_blank" rel="noopener">Sub-1.4 cm3 capsule for detecting labile inflammatory biomarkers in situ.</a></li> <li><a href= "https://asm.org/Articles/2023/September/Bacterial-Biosensors-The-Future-of-Analyte-Detecti" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bacterial Biosensors: The Future of Analyte Detection.</a></li> </ul> <p><br /> Let us know what you thought about this episode by tweeting at us <a href="http://twitter.com/ASMicrobiology" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">@ASMicrobiology</a> or leaving a comment on <a href= "http://facebook.com/asmfan" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">facebook.com/asmfan</a>.</p>
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Think Fungus Early: Preventing Angioinvasion Via Early Detection With Gary Procop
<p>Dr. Gary Procop, CEO of the American Board of pathology and professor of pathology at the Cleveland Clinic, Lerner School of Medicine discusses the importance of early detection and diagnosis in order to prevent fungal invasion leading to poor outcomes, particularly in immunocompromised patients. He emphasizes the importance of thinking fungus early, shares his passion for mentoring and talks about key updates in the recently released 7th Edition of Larone’s Medically Important Fungi.</p> <h2>Ashley's Biggest Takeaways</h2> <ul> <li>Many invasive fungal infections are angiotrophic, meaning they actually grow toward, and into, blood vessels.</li> <li>Once the fungus has penetrated the blood vessel, the blood essentially clots, causing tissue downstream from the blood clot to die (infarction).</li> <li>When tissues that have been excised are viewed under the microscope, hyphal elements can be seen streaming toward or invading through the wall of the blood vessels. Once the clot forms, those hyphal elements can be seen in the center of the blood vessel where only blood should be.</li> <li>Antifungals cannot be delivered to areas where the blood supply has stopped. Therefore, treatment requires a combined surgical and medical approach, and the process is very invasive.</li> <li>Early detection can prevent these bad outcomes by allowing antifungal treatment to be administered before angioinvasion occurs.</li> </ul> <h2>Links for the Episode:</h2> <ul> <li>Expand your clinical mycology knowledge with the recently released <a href="https://asm.social/MedicallyImportantFungi" target="_blank" rel="noopener">7th edition of Larone's Medically Important Fungi: A Guide to Identification.</a> Written by a new team of authors, Lars F. Westblade, Eileen M. Burd, Shawn R. Lockhart and Gary W. Procop, this updated edition continues the legacy of excellence established by founding author, Davise H. Larone.<br /> Since its first edition, this seminal text has been treasured by clinicians and medical laboratory scientists worldwide. The 7th edition carries forward the longstanding tradition of providing high-quality content to educate and support the identification of more than 150 of the most encountered fungi in clinical mycology laboratories.<br /> <br /> Get your copy today with $1 flat rate shipping within the U.S. or <a href="https://asm.social/MedicallyImportantFungi" target= "_blank" rel="noopener">order the e-book!</a> ASM members enjoy 20% off at checkout using the member promo code.</li> </ul> <p>Let us know what you thought about this episode by tweeting at us <a href="http://twitter.com/ASMicrobiology" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">@ASMicrobiology</a> or leaving a comment on <a href= "http://facebook.com/asmfan" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">facebook.com/asmfan</a>.</p>
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Moldy Skin, Invasive Aspergillosis and the Rise of Candida auris With Shawn Lockhart
<p>From antifungal resistance to disaster microbiology and tales of visible mold growing across the skin of patients following a tornado in Joplin, Missouri, Dr. Shawn Lockhart, Senior Clinical Laboratory Advisor in the Mycotic Diseases Branch at the CDC talks all things fungi—complete with references to pop TV shows and the recently released 7th Edition of Larone’s Medically Important Fungi.</p> <p>Links mentioned:</p> <ul> <li><a href= "https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Larone%27s+Medically+Important+Fungi%3A+A+Guide+to+Identification%2C+7th+Edition-p-9781683674429"> Larone's Medically Important Fungi: A Guide to Identification, 7th Edition</a> (Use code: <strong>MCR20</strong> at checkout for 20% off)</li> <li><a href= "https://www.cdc.gov/fungal/healthcare-resources.html#:~:text=CDC's%20Mycotic%20Diseases%20Branch%20conducts,attended%20these%20courses%20to%20date"> CDC’s Mycotic Diseases Branch conducts an annual training course on the identification of pathogenic molds.</a></li> </ul> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p> </p>
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Microbial Flavor Profiles for Bread and Wine Production With Kate Howell
<div dir="ltr" style= "line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><a href= "https://findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au/profile/192335-kate-howell" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. Kate Howell</a>, Associate Professor of Food Chemistry at the University of Melbourne, Australia discusses how microbes impact the flavor and aroma of food and beverages and shares how microbial interactions can be used to enhance nutritional properties of food and beverage sources.</div> <h2>Ashley's Biggest Takeaways</h2> <ul> <li><em>Saccharomyces</em> means sugar-loving fungus.</li> <li>Humans have similar olfactory structures and mechanisms as insects and are similarly attracted to fermenting or rotting fruits produced by <em>Saccharomyces</em>.</li> <li>Research has shown that insects (and humans) prefer yeasts that produce more esters and aromatic compounds.</li> <li>Palm wine is a product that is made from sap collected from palm trees (palm sap) across the tropical band of the world.</li> <li>Fruity flavors appear to be less important to persistence of <em>Saccharomyces</em> strains in an Indonesian palm wine fermentation.</li> <li>This may be because palm wine fermentation is very quick, generally 1-3 days often, with a maximum of 5 days for fermentation to be conducted.</li> <li>Wineries, on the other hand, ferment annually (one fermentation per year/vintage), when the grapes are right. Grape wine fermentations can take 7 days to 2 weeks to complete.</li> <li>So different selections likely take place between the 2 fermentation products.</li> </ul> <h2>Featured Quotes:</h2> <p>When we start drawing our lens on how microbes produce food for humans, we're coopting a process that happens quite naturally. Here I'll start off talking about <em>Saccharomyces cerevisiae</em>, the main fermenting yeast in food and beverage production, because it's one of the most studied organisms and was the first eukaryote to be sequenced.<br /> <br /> <em>Saccharomyces cerevisiae</em>, as the name implies, loves sugar, and it flourishes when there's a lot of sugar in the environment. Where is sugar found? In fruits, and that's done quite deliberately, because fruits develop sugars and flavors and aromas to attract a birds or insects or anything else that can carry their seeds elsewhere for dispersal.<br /> <br /> Now, <em>Saccharomyces</em> lies dormant in the environment in a spore before it encounters a sugar-loving environment. And then it replicates very quickly and tends to dominate fermentation. Humans have coopted that into our kitchens, into our meals, into our lives, and we use that process to produce food.<br /> <br /> As <em>Saccharomyces</em> starts to use this sugar, it balances up its metabolism. And as it does this, it produces aromas. These aromas have a lot of important characteristics. Humans love them, but insects also love them too.<br /> <br /> I've been interested in the yeasts that are found naturally in sourdough starters. Sourdough is a really interesting system. Because you've got yeast and bacteria interacting with one another.<br /> <br /> One of the things we are collaborating on with colleagues in France at Inrae, Dr. Delphine Sicard, is to understand some of the non-<em>Saccharomyces</em> yeasts that are naturally occurring in sourdough starters. So here we're looking at a collection of a yeast called Kazachstania <em>humilis</em> and trying to understand how it has adapted to the sourdough environment, how its sustained over time and how different global populations differ to one another.<br /> <br /> And this, of course, is of interest to the baking industry because not only do artisanal bakers have sort of an undiscovered wealth of biodiversity in their starters, baking companies also have an interest in using different sorts of flavors and bread for the commercial markets.<br /> <br /> The connection between a chemical profile and a person’s sensory preference isn't something that's complete and direct. So, in every method that we use, there's always caveats, but we try to correlate it. Let's start off with the chemical characterization. We use headspace sampling, analytical chemistry, separation with gas chromatography and identification with mass spectrometry.<br /> <br /> And we use different 2-dimensional methods to be able to understand what the very small compounds are, and to be able to identify them. We can semi-quantify these to be able to make comparisons between different fermentations.<br /> <br /> We know from wine fermentations and understanding preferences of wine that, in some cases, a particular increase, or an abundance of a particular compound, can be extremely attractive. And that might depend on the style of wine.<br /> <br /> What we've discovered through this process is that different people prefer different flavors. Makes sense, doesn't it? We like different things. But some really interesting results from our lab, show that people from different cultural backgrounds have different preferences. And here we're using here in Melbourne, I'm very lucky to work with some very talented postdocs and Ph.D. students from China, who have very different preferences for wine than an Australian does. Of course, Australians are quite heterogeneous in their in their cultural diversity as well. But there's certain flavors that our Chinese colleagues tend to prefer. So we decided to investigate this a little bit more.<br /> <br /> So for this study, we recruited wine experts from Australia, actively working in the wine industry, and also wine experts from China, working in the wine industry, and brought them to campus and ask them to rate their preferences on particular aromas and flavor characteristics that they noted in a panel of wines. These were very high-quality wines. We knew with wine experts, we couldn't just give them our loved wines, for example, which can be a little bit patchy quality wise. We asked them to rate their preferences, and then we collected saliva samples.<br /> <br /> The saliva samples were really interesting. We looked at 2 different aspects. We looked at the proteins that were present in the saliva samples. And we also looked at the oral microbiome. So the salivary microbiome—the bacteria, in particular—that are present. We found some really interesting things. And this has sparked a big area in our lab.<br /> <br /> So while the main enzymatic activities in the different groups of participants were quite similar—so esterase activity, Alpha amylase activity were similar—we found that there was a difference in the abundance of proline rich proteins and other potential flavor carrying compounds. Now, this is quite speculative. We'd like to know why this is the case. And so we're delving a little bit further into this area.<br /> <br /> What we do know though is that the abundances, especially if these proline rich proteins, is correlated with how people perceive the stringency. Now stringency is one of those characteristics in wine which is quite difficult to appreciate. It’s a lack of drying characteristic on the tongue and in the mouth and oral cavity. Some people find it quite attractive, others don't.<br /> <br /> But we found that the abundance of these polyproline-rich proteins correlates with stringency. This is, in fact, found in other studies because proline-rich proteins interact with polyphenols in the wine, and precipitate, which changes the sensation of astringency in the oral cavity. So here we've got a nice link to protein abundance and how people perceive flavor. But we're talking about microbiology, so maybe I should delve into the microbiological aspects of these studies as well.<br /> <br /> In that particular study that I'm referring to, we used wines that were naturally fermented, and that's the other variability that we need to consider when we think about wines from different areas. So, a natural fermentation, in a wine sense, is the grapes are harvested, and whatever microflora is present on the grapes will just ferment, and we often don't know what the main fermenting parties are. But if you contrast that with a majority of commercial wine that's produced, mainly in Australia, but also worldwide, it's inoculated with a selected strain of <em>Saccharomyces</em> or maybe 2 selected strains of <em>Saccharomyces</em>, and that tends to produce a fairly similar flavor profile, regardless of region.<br /> <br /> So, you can flatten out geographical characteristics and indications of flavor by inoculating a particular strain of yeast to ferment. That's not true with a natural fermentation, because that's conducted by the yeasts, and also the bacteria which just happened to be in the environment. So, I agree with you there is a lot of regional variation with wine flavor. And we can correlate that with regional diversity of yeast, but only if the wines are naturally fermented not if they're inoculated with a selected strain.<br /> </p> <h2>Links for the Episode:</h2> <ul> <li><a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3921/8/9/405" target= "_blank" rel="noopener">LC-ESI-QTOF/MS Characterisation of Phenolic Acids and Flavonoids in Polyphenol-Rich Fruits and Vegetables</a> and Their Potential Antioxidant Activities.</li> <li>Frozen, canned or fermented: <a href= "https://findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au/news/11575-frozen--canned-or-fermented--when-you-can't-shop-often-for-fresh-vegetables--what-are-the-best-alternatives" target="_blank" rel="noopener">when you can't shop often for fresh vegetables, what are the best alternatives?</a></li> <li><a href= "https://findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au/scholarlywork/1787335-early-prediction-of-shiraz-wine-quality-based-on-small-volatile-compounds-in-grapes" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Early Prediction of Shiraz Wine Quality Based on Small Volatile Compounds in Grapes.</a></li> <li><a href= "https://findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au/project/105009-building-the-climate-resilience-of-melbourne's-food-system" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Building the climate resilience of Melbourne's Food System.</a></li> </ul> <p><br /> Let us know what you thought about this episode by tweeting at us <a href="http://twitter.com/ASMicrobiology" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">@ASMicrobiology</a> or leaving a comment on <a href= "http://facebook.com/asmfan" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">facebook.com/asmfan</a>.</p>
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AncientBiotics With Steve Diggle and Freya Harrison
<p>Dr. Steve Diggle, ASM Distinguished Lecturer and Microbiology Professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia and Dr. Freya Harrison, Associate Microbiology Professor at the University of Warwick in Coventry, U.K., discuss the science behind medieval medical treatments and the benefits of interdisciplinary research.</p> <h2>Ashley's Biggest Takeaways</h2> <ul> <li>Diggle and Harrison met in Oxford, where Harrison was finishing up her Ph.D. and Diggle was doing background research for his work studying evolutionary questions about quorum sensing.</li> <li>When Diggle began searching for a postdoc, Harrison, who had been conducting an independent fellowship at Oxford and studying social evolution, applied.</li> <li>The AncientBiotics Consortium is a group of experts from the sciences, arts and humanities, who are digging through medieval medical books in hopes of finding ancient solutions to today’s growing threat of antibiotic resistance.</li> <li>The group’s first undertaking was recreation and investigation of the antimicrobial properties of an ancient eyesalve described in Bald’s Leechbook, one of the earliest known medical textbooks, which contains recipes for medications, salves and treatments.</li> <li>The consortium found that the eyesalve was capable of killing MRSA, a discovery that generated a lot of media attention and sparked expanded research efforts. </li> <li>The group brought data scientists and mathematicians into the consortium (work driven by Dr. Erin Connelly from the University of Warwick).</li> <li>Together, the researchers began scouring early modern and medieval texts and turning them into databases.</li> <li>The goal? To mathematically data mine these recipes see which ingredients were very often or non-randomly combined in ancient medical remedies.</li> <li>The group recently published work showing synergistic antimicrobial effects of acetic acid and honey.</li> <li>They are also working to pull out the active compounds from Bald’s eyesalve and make a synthetic cocktail that could be added to a wound dressings.</li> </ul> <ul> <li>A 1,000-Year-Old <a href= "https://journals.asm.org/doi/full/10.1128/mBio.01129-15">Antimicrobial Remedy with Antistaphylococcal Activity</a>.</li> <li><a href= "https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/feb/26/the-return-to-medieval-medicine-to-treat-ailments" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Medieval medicine</a>: the return to maggots and leeches to treat ailments.</li> <li>A case study of the <a href= "https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666389922002641" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ancientbiotics collaboration</a>.</li> <li>Phase 1 safety trial of <a href= "https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-22700-4" target= "_blank" rel="noopener">a natural product cocktail with antibacterial activity in human volunteers</a>.</li> <li>Sweet and sour synergy: <a href= "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.03.535340v1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">exploring the antibacterial and antibiofilm activity of acetic acid and vinegar</a> combined with medical-grade honeys.</li> </ul> <p><br /> Let us know what you thought about this episode by tweeting at us <a href="http://twitter.com/ASMicrobiology" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">@ASMicrobiology</a> or leaving a comment on <a href= "http://facebook.com/asmfan" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">facebook.com/asmfan</a>.</p>
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Sending Yeast to the Moon With Jessica Lee
<div dir="ltr" style= "line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;">Dr. Jessica Lee, scientist for the Space Biosciences Research Branch at NASA’s AIMS Research Center in Silicon Valley uses both wet-lab experimentation and computational modeling to understand what microbes really experience when they come to space with humans. She discusses space microbiology, food safety and microbial food production in space and the impacts of microgravity and extreme radiation when sending Saccharomyces cerevisiae to the moon.</div> <h2>Ashley's Biggest Takeaways</h2> <ul> <li>Lee applied for her job at NASA in 2020.</li> <li>Prior to her current position, she completed 2 postdocs and spent time researching how microbes respond to stress at a population level and understanding diversity in microbial populations.</li> <li>She has a background in microbial ecology, evolution and bioinformatics.</li> <li>Model organisms are favored for space research because they reduce risk, maximize the science return and organisms that are well understood are more easily funded.</li> <li>Unsurprisingly, most space research does not actually take place in space, because it is difficult to experiment in space.</li> <li>Which means space conditions must be replicated on Earth.</li> <li>This may be accomplished using creative experimental designs in the wet-lab, as well as using computational modeling.</li> </ul> <h2>Links for the Episode:</h2> <ul> <li><a href= "https://asm.org/Articles/2022/October/Out-of-This-World-Microbes-in-Space"> Out of This World: Microbes in Space.</a></li> <li>Register for <a href= "https://asm.org/Events/ASM-Microbe/Registration" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ASM Microbe 2023</a>.</li> <li>Add “<a href= "https://www.abstractsonline.com/pp8/#!/10789/session/210" target= "_blank" rel="noopener">The Math of Microbes: Computational and Mathematical Modeling of Microbial Systems</a>,” to your ASM Microbe agenda.</li> </ul> <p>Let us know what you thought about this episode by tweeting at us <a href="http://twitter.com/ASMicrobiology" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">@ASMicrobiology</a> or leaving a comment on <a href= "http://facebook.com/asmfan" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">facebook.com/asmfan</a>.</p>
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Invisible Extinction: The Loss of Our Microbes with Maria Gloria Dominguez-Bello and Martin Blaser
<p>Dr. Maria Gloria Dominguez-Bello, Henry Rutgers Professor of Microbiome and Health and director of the Rutgers-based New Jersey Institute for Food, Nutrition and Health, and Dr. Martin Blaser, Professor of Medicine and Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and director of the Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine at Rutgers (NJ) discuss the importance of preserving microbial diversity in the human microbiome.</p> <p>The pair, whose research was recently featured in a documentary The Invisible Extinction, are on a race to prevent the loss of ancestral microbes and save the bacteria that contribute to human health and well-being. </p> <h2>Links for the Episode:</h2> <ul> <li><a href="https://www.theinvisibleextinction.com/" target= "_blank" rel="noopener">The Invisible Extinction</a> (documentary)</li> <li><a href= "https://www.google.com/books/edition/Missing_Microbes/HANOAgAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Missing Microbes</a> (book)</li> <li>Missing Microbes: <a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4214321/" target= "_blank" rel="noopener">How the Overuse of Antibiotics Is Fueling Our Modern Plagues</a> (article)</li> <li>(YouTube) <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwK_O0ahDKo" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Missing Microbes with Dr. Martin Blaser</a></li> </ul>
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The Self-Experimentation of Barry Marshall
<p>Dr. Robert Gaynes, distinguished physician and professor of infectious diseases at Emory University, joins Meet the Microbiologist for the 3rd , and final, episode in a unique 3-part segment, in which we share stories about the life and work of medial pioneers in infectious diseases. Here we discuss the career of Dr. Barry Marshall, the Australian physician who is best known for demonstrating in a rather unorthodox way that peptic ulcers are caused by the bacterium, <em>Helicobacter pylori</em>.<br /> <br /> Gaynes is author of <em>Germ Theory: Medical Pioneers in Infectious Diseases</em>, the 2nd edition of which will publish in Spring 2023. All 3 scientists highlighted in this special MTM segment are also featured in the upcoming edition of the book.</p>
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The Career of Tony Fauci
<p>Dr. Robert Gaynes, distinguished physician and professor of infectious diseases at Emory University, joins Meet the Microbiologist for the 2nd episode in a unique 3-part series, in which we share the impact of scientists at the heart of various paradigm shifts throughout scientific history. Here we discuss the life and career of Tony Fauci, the scientist who has been recognized as America’s Top Infectious Diseases Doctor and “voice of science” during the COVID-19 pandemic.</p> <h2>Ashley's Biggest Takeaways</h2> <ul> <li>Fauci was born in Brooklyn, New York.</li> <li>He was a 2nd generation American whose parents came from Italy.</li> <li>Fauci’s father was a pharmacist in Brooklyn and was very influential in his life.</li> <li>During high school, Fauci worked behind the counter at the family pharmacy and even delivered prescriptions by bicycle.</li> <li>He attended a Jesuit high school in Manhattan, and attended the College of Holy Cross.</li> <li>After college, Fauci attended Cornell Medical School in Manhattan, which was his first choice of medical school.</li> <li>Fauci graduated first in his class in medical school in the mid 1960’s, right in the midst of the Vietnam War.</li> <li>During that time, after completing their initial residency training, virtually all doctors were drafted into one of the military services or the U.S. Public Health Service.</li> <li>Fauci accepted into the NIH program within the U.S. Public Health Service, where he acquired training and a fellowship in Clinical Immunology and Infectious Diseases.</li> <li>Fauci became the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID) in 1984.</li> <li>Fauci served as advisor to 7 U.S. presidents, including Ronald Regan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden.</li> <li>15 years after the creation of PEPFAR, Fauci reported, in the New England Journal of Medicine, that PEPFAR funded programs had provided antiretroviral therapy to 13.3 M people, averted 2.2 M perinatal HIV infections and provided care for more than 6.4 M orphans and vulnerable children.</li> </ul> <p><a href= "https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Germ+Theory:+Medical+Pioneers+in+Infectious+Diseases-p-9781555815295?utm_source=podcast-feed&utm_medium=cta-button&utm_campaign=asm-book-promo&utm_id=asm-podcasts" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><em>The first edition of "Germ Theory: Medical Pioneers in Infectious Diseases" is available now. The 2nd edition will publish in the spring of 2023.</em></a></p>
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Françoise Barré-Sinoussi's Discovery of HIV
<div dir="ltr" style= "line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;">Dr. Robert Gaynes, distinguished physician and professor of infectious diseases at Emory University, joins Meet the Microbiologist for a unique episode, in which we share the story of Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, the French, female scientist who discovered HIV and found herself at the heart of one of the most bitter scientific disputes in recent history.</div> <p><br /> Subscribe (free) on <a href= "https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/meet-the-scientist/id289419806?mt=2&ls=1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href= "https://open.spotify.com/show/3gnWS7zGs3DWLUkewCJib2" target= "_blank" rel="noopener">Spotify</a>, <a href= "https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cDovL21lZXR0aGVzY2llbnRpc3QubWljcm9iZXdvcmxkLmxpYnN5bnByby5jb20vcnNz" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Google Podcasts</a>, <a href= "http://www.subscribeonandroid.com/meetthescientist.microbeworld.libsynpro.com/rss" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Android</a>, <a href= "http://meetthescientist.microbeworld.libsynpro.com/rss" target= "_blank" rel="noopener">RSS</a> or by <a href= "http://eepurl.com/c4MKHb" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">email</a>.</p> <h2>Ashley's Biggest Takeaways</h2> <ul> <li>The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report first reported on a cluster of unusual infections in June of 1981, which would become known as AIDS.</li> <li>Evidence suggested that the disease was sexually transmitted and could be transferred via contaminated blood supply and products, as well as contaminated needles, and could be passed from mother to child.</li> <li>All hemophiliacs of this generation acquired AIDS (15,000 in the U.S. alone).</li> <li>The fact that the microbe was small enough to evade filters used to screen the clotting factor given to hemophiliacs indicated that the etiologic agent was a virus.</li> <li>AIDS patients had low counts of T-lymphocytes called CD4 cells.</li> <li>By 1993, the most likely virus candidates included, a relative of hepatitis B virus, some kind of herpes virus or a retrovirus.</li> <li>Howard Temin discovered reverse transcriptase, working with Rous sarcoma in the 50s and 60s. His work upset the Central Dogma of Genetics, and at first people not only did not believe him, but also ridiculed him for this claim.</li> <li>Research conducted by David Baltimore validated Temin’s work, and Temin, Baltimore and Renato Dulbecco shared the Nobel Prize for the discovery in 1975.</li> <li>Robert Gallo of the U.S. National Institute of Health (NIH), discovered the first example of a human retrovirus—human T-cell lymphotropic virus (HTLV-1).</li> <li>Françoise Barré-Sinoussi worked on murine retroviruses in a laboratory unit run by Luc Montagnier, where she became very good at isolating retroviruses from culture.</li> <li>In 1982, doctors gave lab Montagnier’s lab a sample taken from a with generalized adenopathy, a syndrome that was a precursor to AIDS.</li> <li>Barré-Sinoussi began to detect evidence of reverse transcriptase in cell culture 2 days after the samples were brought to her lab.</li> <li>Barré-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier were recognized for the discovery of HIV with the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.</li> </ul> <h2>Links for the Episode:</h2> <p>From the ancient worlds of Hippocrates and Avicenna to the early 20th century hospitals of Paul Ehrlich and Lillian Wald to the modern-day laboratories of François Barré-Sinoussi and Barry Marshall, <em>Germ Theory</em> brings to life the inspiring stories of medical pioneers whose work helped change the very fabric of our understanding of how we think about and treat infectious diseases.<br /> <a href= "https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Germ+Theory:+Medical+Pioneers+in+Infectious+Diseases-p-9781555815295?utm_source=podcast-feed&utm_medium=cta-button&utm_campaign=asm-book-promo&utm_id=asm-podcasts" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><em>Germ Theory: Medical Pioneers in Infectious Diseases</em></a><br /> <br /> The second edition of <em>Germ Theory</em>, which will include chapters on Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, Barry Marshall and Tony Fauci, will publish in Spring 2023.</p>
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Permafrost with Devin Drown
<h2 class="heading">Episode Summary</h2> <div class="content"> <div dir="ltr" style= "line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;">Dr. Devin Drown, associate professor of biology and faculty director of the Institute of Arctic Biology Genomics Core at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, discusses how soil disturbance gradients in the permafrost layer impact microbial communities. He also explains the larger impacts of his research on local plant, animal and human populations, and shares his experience surveilling SARS-CoV-2 variants in Alaska, where he and colleagues have observed a repeat pattern of founder events in the state.</div> <h2>Ashley's Biggest Takeaways</h2> <ul> <li>Permafrost is loosely defined as soil that has been frozen for 2 or more years in a row.</li> <li>Some permafrost can be quite young, but a lot of it is much older—1000s of years old.</li> <li>This frozen soil possesses large storage capacity for walking carbon and other kinds of nutrients that can be metabolized by microbes as well as other organisms living above the frozen ground.</li> <li>About 85% of the landmass in Alaska is underlined by permafrost. Some is continuous permafrost, while other areas of landmass are discontinuous permafrost—locations where both unfrozen soil and frozen soil are present.</li> <li>As this frozen resource is thawing as a result of climate change, it is releasing carbon and changing soil hydrology and nutrient composition, in the active layer in the soil surrounding it.</li> <li>Changes in the nutrients and availability of those nutrients are also likely changing the structure of the microbial communities.</li> <li>Drown and team are using a combination of traditional (amplicon sequencing) and 3rd generation (nanopore) next sequencing (NGS) techniques to characterize the microbes and genes that are in thawing permafrost soil.</li> </ul> <h2>Featured Quotes:</h2> “Globally, we've seen temperatures increase here in the Arctic. Changes in global temperatures are rising even faster, 2-3 times, and I've heard recent estimates that are even higher than that.”<br /> <br /> “These large changes in temperatures are causing direct impacts on the thaw of the permafrost. But they're also generating changes in other patterns, like increases in wildfires. We just had a substantial wildfire season here in Alaska, and those wildfires certainly contribute to additional permafrost thaw by sometimes removing that insulating layer of soil that might keep that ground frozen, as well as directly adding heat to the to the soil.”<br /> <br /> “There are other changes that might be causing permafrost thaw, like anthropogenic changes, changes in land use patterns. As we build and develop roads into areas that haven't been touched by humans in a long time. We're seeing changes in disruption to permafrost.”<br /> <br /> “Some people are quite interested in what might be coming out of the permafrost. We might see nutrients, as well as microorganisms that are moving from this frozen bank of soil into the active layer.”<br /> <br /> “We're using next generation sequencing techniques to characterize not only who is in these soils, but also what they're doing.”<br /> <br /> “I started as a faculty member in 2015. As I moved up to Alaska, I got some really great advice from a postdoctoral mentor that said, make sure you choose something local. I'm fortunate enough that I have access to permafrost thaw gradient, that's effectively in the backyard of my office.”<br /> <br /> “Just a few miles from campus, we have access to a site that's managed by the Army Corps of Engineers. They have a cold regions group up here that runs a more famous permafrost tunnel. So they've dug a deep tunnel into the side of a hill that stretches back about 40,000 years into permafrost. They also have a great field site that has an artificially induced permafrost thaw gradient, and a majority of our published work has been generated by taking soil cores from that field site.”<br /> <br /> “Maintaining that cold chain, whether it’s experimental reagents or experimental samples, is a challenge for everyone. We're collecting active layer soil—the soil directly beneath our feet—so that's not at terribly extreme temperatures. But we do put it in coolers immediately upon extracting from the from the environment. Then we can bring it back to our lab where we can freeze it if we're going to use it for later analysis, or we can keep it at appropriately cool temperatures, if we're going to be working with the microbial community directly.”<br /> <br /> “We were most interested in looking for microbes that might have impacts on the above ground. ecosystem. So when we were characterizing the microbial community, we were doing that because we also wanted to link it to above ground changes.”<br /> <br /> “Changes in vegetation that might be driven by changes in microorganisms would certainly have an impact on the wildlife that are that are present at the site. So, just as an example, if we see a decrease in berries that might be present, that might decrease the interest from animals that rely on that [food source]. And so we might see changes in who's there.”<br /> <br /> “Outside of my research, we've seen changes in the types of plants present across northern latitudes. So different willows, for instance, are moving farther north, and that is leading animals, like moose, to move farther north. And so we might see changes in those kinds of patterns directly as a result of the microorganisms as well.”<br /> <br /> “We're really working to expand our efforts to move to other kinds of disturbances. I mentioned wildfires before, these are an important source of disturbance for boreal forest ecosystems. We have a project here in the interior, looking at the impacts of wildfires on microbial communities and how [these disturbances] might be changing the functional potential of microbial communities.”<br /> <br /> Let us know what you thought about this episode by tweeting at us <a href="http://twitter.com/ASMicrobiology" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">@ASMicrobiology</a> or leaving a comment on <a href= "http://facebook.com/asmfan" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">facebook.com/asmfan</a>.</div>
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To Catch a Virus with Marie Landry and John Booss
<div dir="ltr" style= "line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;">Dr. Marie Landry, Professor of Laboratory medicine and Infectious Diseases at Yale University School of Medicine and Dr. John Booss, former National Director of Neurology for the Department of Veteran’s Affairs discuss the past, present and future of diagnostic virology. These proclaimed coauthors walk us through the impact of some of the most significant pathogens of our time in preparation for the launch of their 2nd edition of “To Catch a Virus,” a book that recounts the history of viral epidemics from the late 1800s to present in a gripping storytelling fashion.</div> <div dir="ltr" style= "line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"> <h2>Ashley's Biggest Takeaways</h2> <ul> <li>Coauthoring a book requires having great respect for the opinions of the person you are working with.</li> <li>The first human disease shown to be viral in nature was yellow fever, but for quite some time, the mode of disease transmission remained mysterious. In early 1881, Carlos Finlay of Cuba suggested that the disease could be spread by mosquitoes and significantly advanced the field.</li> <li>It wasn’t until polio was discovered in the early 1900s that scientists determined that viruses could also be transmitted by and animals.</li> <li>The ability to grow virus in tissue culture was another huge advancement in the field of diagnostic virology, which eventually led to the development of the Salk inactivated polio vaccine (IPV).</li> <li>Although he did not seek the spotlight for his work, Walter Roe, was a bright, hardworking (and one of John’s favorite) virologist, who made important advances in tissue culture, researched the role of retroviruses in animal cancer and discovered adenoviruses. </li> <li>As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the clinical laboratory played a central role in public health. The importance of a laboratory diagnosis became more evident and next generation sequencing moved further into the clinical lab.</li> </ul> <h2>Featured Quotes:</h2> “Advice that was given to me way back when I started on my first book is that you have to write about something you're passionate about. You have to really believe in the topic because otherwise it'll come across as superficial and artificial. So the very first step is do you really believe in, [and in the case of writing a book, that means] believe in what you're writing about.” – Booss.<br /> <br /> “Science is often projected as a steady stream of advances one after the other. But there is a certain amount, I think, of arbitrary choice at each step. And it's also true for for writing a book.” – Booss<br /> <br /> “In putting the book together, there are obviously major events that occurred in virology, major crises that move the field forward, an interplay, really, of the scientific advances, the clinical need of the crisis at hand and some very remarkable people. One highlight of this book is the way it does focus on individuals and their stories and how they contributed to that progress.” -Landry<br /> <br /> “When [pathogens] spread from a local area to a larger area geopolitical area or even globally, they become pandemic.” <h3>Polio</h3> “The most compelling virus that I can think of in my youth was obviously polio. So when I was a small child, polio was causing epidemics every summer, at the end of which, between 20 and 30,000 children in the United States were left either paralyzed or dead. So this was it really struck fear into parents hearts.” – Landry<br /> <br /> “And then came the oral polio vaccine. We lined up, and it was a very, very painless way to be immunized. So that was a tremendous success story, we've come very close to eliminating polio, because of a number of reasons it hasn't happened.” - Landry<br /> <br /> “There was a case recently of paralytic polio in New York, in an unvaccinated person. And I hope this is a wake-up call, we really thought we were about to eliminate before COVID. And then with those disruptions and others, there's been a little resurgence, but I hope that it will be accomplished soon.” -Landry <h3>COVID-19</h3> “It's amazing how much the world did change. International economies collapsed. whole societies shut down. The education and socialization of children came to a screeching halt. As schools close, whole chasms of inequality opened up or were revealed. And also the poor and marginalized people were the ones who suffered most. And the U.S. cultural divisions interfered with attempts to block the disease. So that by 2022, the U.S. was unique in having over 1 million deaths. We lead unfortunately led the world in that regard.” – Booss<br /> <br /> “Sometimes we need a crisis to move us forward. And we saw this with the new vaccine platforms, especially the mRNA vaccine.”<br /> <br /> Let us know what you thought about this episode by tweeting at us <a href="http://twitter.com/ASMicrobiology" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">@ASMicrobiology</a> or leaving a comment on <a href= "http://facebook.com/asmfan" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">facebook.com/asmfan</a>. <h2>Links</h2> From yellow fever and smallpox, to polio, AIDS and COVID-19, To Catch a Virus guides readers through the mysterious process of catching novel viruses and controlling deadly viral epidemics— and the detective work of those determined to identify the culprits and treat the infected.<br /> <br /> The new edition will be released October 15, 2022, available at <a href="https://asm.org/books" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">asm.org/books</a></div>
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Outbreak Detection with Wun-Ju Shieh
<p>Dr. Wun-Ju Shieh, worked as a pathologist and infectious diseases expert with the CDC from 1995-2020. He recounts his experiences conducting high risk autopsies on the frontlines of outbreaks including Ebola, H1N1 influenza, monkeypox and SARS-CoV-1 and 2. He also addresses key questions about factors contributing to the (re)emergence and spread of pathogens and discusses whether outbreaks are becoming more frequent or simply more widely publicized.</p> <p>Ashley’s Biggest Takeaways:</p> <p>• Pathologists are a group of medical doctors serving behind the line of the daily hospital activities.<br /> • Pathology service can be divided into atomic pathology and clinical pathology. The field covers all the laboratory diagnostic work in the hospital, and clinical microbiology or medical microbiology is actually a subdivision within the clinical pathology service.<br /> • Usually, a pathologist working in a hospital will examine and dissect tissue specimens from surgery or biopsy.<br /> • The pathologist also performs autopsies as requested to determine or confirm the cause of death.<br /> • Serving as first a clinician in Taiwan and then a pathologist in the United States has provided Shieh with the unique experience of evaluating patients from both the outside-in and the inside-out!<br /> • Even when a major outbreak of a known etiologic agent is taking place, confirmatory diagnosis is necessary for subsequent quarantine, control and prevention of the outbreak.<br /> • During major disease outbreaks, other pathogens do not go away, and we must simultaneously facilitate their timely diagnosis to ensure effective patient treatment and care.<br /> • SARS-CoV-2 appears to be transmitted more easily than SARS-CoV-1. One possible explanation for this is that the amount of viral load appears to be the highest in the upper respiratory tract of those with COVID-19, shortly after the symptoms develop. This indicates that people with COVID-19 may be transmitting the virus early in infection, just as their symptoms are developing…or even before they appear or without symptoms.<br /> • SARS-CoV-1 viral loads peak much later in the illness.<br /> • Asymptomatic transmission is rarely seen with SARS-CoV-1 infection.<br /> • Almost 99% of SARS-CoV-1 patients developed prominent fever when they started to carry infectivity. Temperature monitoring was therefore, very effective at detecting sick patients and facilitating prompt quarantining procedures, which effectively contained/minimized transmission of the virus.<br /> • This was not as effective for SARS-CoV-2, despite early attempts at temperature. monitoring.<br /> • SARS-CoV-2 was much harder to contain both because of the milder display of host symptoms and the demonstration of higher viral transmissibility.</p>
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Lyme Disease Prevention and Treatment with Linden Hu
<div dir="ltr" style= "line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;">Dr. Linden Hu, Vice Dean for Research at Tufts University in Boston Massachusetts and Paul and Elaine Chervinsky Professor in Immunology, discusses new and ongoing research pertaining to the prevention, treatment and diagnosis of human Lyme disease. He also discusses some of the key unanswered questions about Lyme, such as how <em>B. burgdorferi</em> adapts to different hosts and environments and why some patients have been known to exhibit persistent symptoms even after treatment.</div> <div dir="ltr" style= "line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"> </div> <div dir="ltr" style= "line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"> <strong>Links mentioned:</strong></div> <div dir="ltr" style= "line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"> <ul> <li>Webinar - Vector-Borne Disease in a Changing Climate <a href= "https://asm.org/Webinars/Vector-Borne-Disease-in-a-Changing-Climate"> https://asm.org/Webinars/Vector-Borne-Disease-in-a-Changing-Climate</a></li> <li>The Bulls-Eye Rash of Lyme Disease: <a href= "https://asm.org/Articles/2018/April/going-skin-deep-investigating-the-cutaneous-host-p" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">https://asm.org/Articles/2018/April/going-skin-deep-investigating-the-cutaneous-host-p</a></li> <li>Pfizer and Valneva Initiate Phase 3 Study of Lyme Disease Vaccine Candidate VLA15 <a href= "https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-detail/pfizer-and-valneva-initiate-phase-3-study-lyme-disease" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-detail/pfizer-and-valneva-initiate-phase-3-study-lyme-disease</a></li> <li>Could This Treatment Prevent Chronic Lyme Disease? <a href= "http://https//news.northeastern.edu/2021/10/06/preventing-chronic-lyme-disease/" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">https://news.northeastern.edu/2021/10/06/preventing-chronic-lyme-disease/</a></li> <li>Promising New Drug Would Eradicate Lyme While Leaving Gut Microbes Alone: <a href= "https://www.lymedisease.org/members/lyme-times/2022-spring-news/targeted-lyme-disease-drug/" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">https://www.lymedisease.org/members/lyme-times/2022-spring-news/targeted-lyme-disease-drug/</a></li> <li>A Tick’s Meal: <a href= "https://asm.org/Podcasts/TWiM/Episodes/A-Tick-s-Meal-TWiM-258" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">https://asm.org/Podcasts/TWiM/Episodes/A-Tick-s-Meal-TWiM-258</a></li> <li>Evidence That the Variable Regions of the Central Domain of VlsE Are Antigenic during Infection with Lyme Disease Spirochetes <a href= "https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/IAI.70.8.4196-4203.2002" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/IAI.70.8.4196-4203.2002</a></li> <li>Distinct Roles for MyD88 and Toll-Like Receptors 2, 5, and 9 in Phagocytosis of Borrelia burgdorferi and Cytokine Induction <a href= "https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/IAI.01600-07" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/IAI.01600-07</a></li> </ul> </div>
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Tardigrades and Microbial Midwives with Mark O. Martin
<p>Dr. Mark O. Martin, Associate professor of biology at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington is a distinguished educator with a well-known social media presence. He discusses how he became interested in microbiology and what drives his varied research foci, including #Microbialcentricity, bacterial predation, bioluminescence, tardigrades, microbial midwives and more. In the process, he delves into his passion for using art and other creative approaches to facilitate learning in the classroom, and shares some experience-driven wisdom about building confidence in STEM.</p> <p>Links for this Episode:</p> <ul> <li>Vertically transmitted microbiome protects eggs from fungal infection and egg failure <a href= "https://animalmicrobiome.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s42523-021-00104-5"> https://animalmicrobiome.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s42523-021-00104-5</a></li> <li>The effects of Sceloporus virgatus cloacal microbiota on the growth of pathogenic fungi <a href= "https://soundideas.pugetsound.edu/summer_research/426/">https://soundideas.pugetsound.edu/summer_research/426/</a></li> <li>Sex-specific asymmetry within the cloacal microbiota of the striped plateau lizard, Sceloporus virgatus <a href= "https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13199-010-0078-y">https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13199-010-0078-y</a></li> <li>Predatory Prokaryotes: An Emerging Research<br /> Opportunity (pdf) <a href= "https://www.pugetsound.edu/sites/default/files/file/martin2002_0.pdf"> https://www.pugetsound.edu/sites/default/files/file/martin2002_0.pdf</a></li> <li>Carleton College #LuxArt 2019 <a href= "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fztiJ3o7uWs">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fztiJ3o7uWs</a></li> </ul>
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Shark Epidermis Microbiome with Elizabeth Dinsdale
<p>Dr. Elizabeth Dinsdale, Matthew Flinders Fellow in Marine Biology in the College of Science and Engineering at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia, uses genomic techniques to investigate the biodiversity of microbial communities in distinct ecological niches, including coral reefs, kelp forest and shark epidermis. She discusses how shotgun metagenomics is being used to characterize the architecture of microbial communities living in the thin layer of underlying mucus on shark’s skin, and how understanding the function of these microbes is providing clues to important host-microbe interactions, including heavy metal tolerance.</p> <p><strong>Ashley’s Biggest Takeaways:</strong></p> <p>Sharks belong to a subclass of cartilaginous fish called elasmobranchs and are unique in that their epidermises are covered in dermal denticles—overlapping tooth-like structures that reduce drag and turbulence, helping the shark to move quickly and quietly through the water. These dermal denticles are sharp (if you’re going to pet a shark, make sure you go from the head to the tail to avoid getting cut!), and depending on the species of shark, may be more or less spread out across the epidermis.</p> <p>Where do microbes enter the story? Dermal denticles overlay a thin layer of mucus, which provides a distinctive environment for microbial life. Collecting microbial samples from underneath a shark’s dermal denticles is quite difficult, and the technique varies by shark species (shark size, water depth and ability to bite all factor into the equation). Liz’s team uses a specially designed tool that the group affectionately calls a “supersucker,” to create and capture a slurry of microbes and water for analysis.</p> <p>The team then uses shotgun metagenomics to identify and characterize the microbes in their collected samples. Sequencing has revealed biogeographical difference, as well as similarities in microbial architecture of whale sharks across the globe.</p> <p>There are 2 populations of whale sharks—one in the Atlantic Ocean and the other in the Indian Pacific Ocean. Samples collected from both populations have revealed that each individual whale shark, from within each aggregation, shares many of the same microbes. In fact, unlike algae which may share 1 to 2 microbial species, whale sharks share about 80% of microbes across every individual. Since many of the sharks don’t cross aggregations, Liz’s team is investigating the possibility of coevolution between microbes and hosts.</p> <p>Metagenomic sequencing also provides information about the function of the sequenced microbes. High presence of heavy metal-tolerant microbes has been found in the epidermis of all shark species that the team has analyzed. Sharks are known to carry high levels of heavy metals in their skin, muscle and even blood. However, muscle tissue samples contain lower concentrations than skin, indicating that there may be a density gradient in place, and raising questions about how microbes might be involved in this regulation. Is there a pathway by which the microbes metabolize and help to remove concentrations of heavy metals across the epidermis? Liz and her team are hoping to find out.</p> <p><strong>Links:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Elizabeth Dinsdale <a href= "https://www.flinders.edu.au/people/elizabeth.dinsdale">https://www.flinders.edu.au/people/elizabeth.dinsdale</a></li> <li>Tracking Pathogens via Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) <a href="https://asm.org/Magazine/2021/Spring/Tracking-Pathogens-via-Next-Generation-Sequencing"> https://asm.org/Magazine/2021/Spring/Tracking-Pathogens-via-Next-Generation-Sequencing</a></li> <li>Microbial Ecology of Four Coral Atolls in the Northern Line Islands <a href= "https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0001584"> https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0001584</a></li> <li>Coral Research <a href= "https://coralandphage.org/research_coral.php">https://coralandphage.org/research_coral.php</a></li> <li> Metagenomic analysis of stressed coral holobionts <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19397678/">https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19397678/</a></li> <li> Metagenomic analysis of the microbial community associated with the coral Porites astreoides <a href= "https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17922755/">https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17922755/</a></li> </ul>
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Microbial Culture Collections and the Soil Microbiome with Mallory Choudoir
<p>Dr. Mallory Choudoir, microbial ecologist and evolutionary biologist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst shares how she leverages microbial culture collections to infer ecological and evolutionary responses to warming soil temperatures. She discusses complexities of the soil microbiome and microbial dispersal dynamics, and introduces fundamental concepts about the intersection between microbes and social equity.</p> <p>Ashley’s Biggest Takeaways:</p> <p>Microbial culture collections are fundamental resources, serving as libraries where diverse species of microbes are identified, characterized and preserved in pure, viable form. Culture collections ensure conservation of species diversity and sustainable use of the collected microbes.</p> <p>For soil microbiologists, like Mallory Choudoir, culture collections provide the opportunity to connect patterns of genomic variation and microbial physiology to the conditions under which a particular microbe was isolated.</p> <p>Soil is a complex environment from the perspective of a microbe. In order to coexist in such a biologically diverse environment, which consists of spatial heterogeneity, as well as heterogeneity in access to moisture and nutrients, microbes must evolve different strategies to survive as part of a stable community.</p> <p>Choudoir’s field site is based in the Harvard Forest Long Term Ecological Research Program's field site, where coils are buried and have been heating the forest soil to 5 degrees above ambient temperatures for nearly 30 years. The study allows Choudoir and colleagues to observe and evaluate long-term responses to chronic soil warming stress.</p> <p>This research is important because microbes function as resources to the health and well-being of ourselves and our planet. Understanding how microbes adapt to biotic and abiotic stresses can help inform future conservation strategies, biotechnological approaches and applications and equitable allocation of microbial resources.</p> <p>Visit <a href="https://asm.org/mtm">https://asm.org/mtm</a> for links mentioned</p>
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Neglected Tropical Diseases and Pandemic Prevention With Peter Hotez
<p>Peter Hotez talks about the global impact and historical context of neglected tropical diseases. He also highlights important developments in mass drug administration and vaccine research and shares why he chose to publish the third edition of <a href= "https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Forgotten+People%2C+Forgotten+Diseases%3A+The+Neglected+Tropical+Diseases+and+Their+Impact+on+Global+Health+and+Development%2C+3rd+Edition-p-9781683673897?utm_content=American+Society+for+Microbiology&utm_campaign=ASMPress&utm_medium=social&utm_source=mtmpodcast">Forgotten People, Forgotten Diseases</a> during the COVID-19 pandemic.<br /> Ashley's Biggest Takeaways</p> <p><br /> Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) are chronic and debilitating conditions that disproportionately impact people in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). </p> <p>Many of these diseases are parasitic, such as hookworm infection, schistosomiasis and chagas disease; however, in recent years, several non-parasitic infections caused by bacteria, fungi and viruses, as well as a few conditions that are not infections, including snake bite and scabies (an ectoparasitic infestation), have been added to the original NTD framework (established in the early 2000s). <br /> What do most NTDs have in common?</p> <p>High prevalence.<br /> High mortality; low morbidity.<br /> Disabling.<br /> Interfere with people’s ability to work productively. <br /> Impact child development and/or the health of girls and women.<br /> Occur in a setting of poverty and actually cause poverty because of chronic and debilitating effects.</p> <p>Hotez and his colleagues recognized that there is a uniqueness to the NTDs ecosystem, and they began putting together a package of medicines that could be given on a yearly or twice per year basis, using a strategy called Mass Drug Administration (MDA). This involved the identification of medicines that were being used on an annual basis in vertical control programs and combining those medications in a package of interventions that costs about $0.50 per person per year. “Throw in an extra 50 cents per person and we could double or triple the impact of public health interventions,” he explained. </p> <p>Emerging diseases, such as SARS-CoV-2, capture the attention of the public for obvious reasons. They pose an imminent threat to mankind. NTDs are not emerging infections, but they are ancient afflictions that have plagued humankind for centuries and, as a consequence, have had a huge impact on ancient and modern history. One of the reasons we have mainland China and Taiwan today may have been, in part, due to a parasitic infection, Schistosomiasis.</p> <p>Hotez and colleagues at the Texas Children’s Center for Vaccine Development have developed a COVID-19 vaccine, based on simple technology, similar to what is used for the Hepatitis B vaccine. They hope to release the vaccine for emergency use in resource poor countries like India and Indonesia. </p> <p>When asked about the timing of the publication of his book, the third edition of Forgotten People, Forgotten Diseases, Hotez acknowledged the difficulty of helping countries understand that NTDs have not gone away. COVID-19 is superimposed on top of them, and the pandemic has done a lot of damage in terms of NTD control. Although social disruption has interfered with the ability to deliver mass treatments, Hotez said that it has been gratifying to see that the USAID and their contractors have responded by putting out guidelines about how to deliver mass treatments with safe social distancing.</p> <p>“As a global society, we have to figure out how to walk and chew gum at the same time,” he said. “We’ve got to take care of COVID, but we really must not lose the momentum we’ve had for NTDs because the prevalence is starting to decline and we’re really starting to make an impact.”</p>
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133: Vibrio cholerae with Rita Colwell
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Rita Colwell has made major advances in basic and applied microbiology, largely focused on</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Vibrio</span></em> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">cholerae</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">. She describes several lines of evidence for the environmental niche of the bacterium, as well as her work to predict and prepare for cholera outbreaks. Colwell closes with her thoughts on why it’s a great time to be a microbiologist.</span></p>
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132: Life Science and Earth Science and Biogeomicrobiology with Denise Akob
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Denise Akob discusses her studies of microbial communities of contaminated and pristine environments using life science and earth science techniques. She discusses how to figure out “who’s there,” how to optimize select natural microbial activities, and her career path into government research.</span></p> <p><strong>Julie’s Biggest Takeaways:</strong></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Biogeomicrobiology straddles the life science and earth science fields. This is a growing area of research in the academic setting as well as in the private sector, where one can contribute to hydrogeology or bioremediation efforts. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">What happens on the surface when extracting resources like natural gases? Wastewater from hydraulic shale fracking, or fracking, can contaminate microbes. Preliminary data suggests that microbes that thrive in that wastewater can be a fingerprint for surface contamination, and this is one of the areas of active research in Akob’s lab. Additionally, microbes can respond to contaminants to remove that risk and remediate the spills.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">One trip to the field can provide samples for years of analysis. From one sample, scientists can conduct:</span></p> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Microbiome studies through amplicon sequencing to understand population structures.</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Metagenomics studies to understand functional potential.</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Biochemical studies to understand active metabolic processes.</span></li> </ul> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Akob asks how to make natural microbial degraders happy. For example: acetylene, a triple-bonded carbon compound, can inhibit degradation of chlorinated solvents, a potent groundwater contaminant. By studying the microbes that use acetylene as a primary energy source (acetylenotrophs), this removes this inhibition caused by acetylene and the chlorinated solvent-degraders can increase their activity. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Akob studies pristine environments to understand natural microbial communities. A cave she studied in Germany was ‘ultra pristine,’ discovered while building a highway. Understanding natural processes, such as the biomineralization promoted during stalagmite and stalactite formation helps scientists imagine how to use tehse processes in other applications.</span></p> <p><strong>Links for this Episode:</strong></p> <ul> <li><a href= "https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29453259/"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> Mumford AC</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">et al</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">. Common Hydraulic Fracturing Fluid Additives Alter the Structure and Function of Anaerobic Microbial Communities.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Applied and Environmetnal Microbiology.</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">2018.</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29933435/"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> Akob DM</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">et al</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">. Acetylenotrophy: a Hidden but Ubiquitous Microbial Metabolism?</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">FEMS Microbial Ecology</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. 2018.</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28667109/"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> Akob DM</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">et al</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">. Detection of Diazotrophy in the Acetylene-Fermenting Anaerobic Pelobacter sp. Strain SFB93.</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Applied and Environmental Microbiology.</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">2017.</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://asm.org/Articles/2017/May/the-microbial-world-of-caves"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> ASM Article: The Microbial World of Caves</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31915213/"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> James J, Gunn AL, and Akob DM. Binning Singletons: Mentoring through Networking at ASM Microbe 2019.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">mSphere.</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">2020.</span></a></li> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;">HOM Tidbit:</span> <a href= "https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2016/12/scientists-find-ancient-cave-dwelling-resistant-bacteria"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Scientists Find Ancient Cave Dwelling Resistant Bacteria</span></a></li> <li><a href="http://bit.ly/2Slf0uC"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">ASM Press: Women in Microbiology</span></a></li> </ul> <p> </p>
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131: Powassan virus and tick biology with Marshall Bloom
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">How does tick biology influence their ability to transmit disease? Marshall Bloom explains the role of the tick salivary glands in Powassan virus transmission and the experiments that led to this discovery. He also provides a historical background for the Rocky Mountain Labs in Hamilton, Montana, and talks about the 3 elements to consider when working with potentially harmful biological agents.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Subscribe (free) on</span> <a href= "https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/meet-the-scientist/id289419806?mt=2&ls=1"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Apple Podcasts</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">,</span> <a href="https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cDovL21lZXR0aGVzY2llbnRpc3QubWljcm9iZXdvcmxkLmxpYnN5bnByby5jb20vcnNz"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Google Podcasts</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">,</span> <a href="http://www.subscribeonandroid.com/meetthescientist.microbeworld.libsynpro.com/rss"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Android</span></a><span style= "font-weight: 400;">,</span> <a href= "http://meetthescientist.microbeworld.libsynpro.com/rss"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> RSS</span></a> <span style="font-weight: 400;">or by</span> <a href="http://eepurl.com/c4MKHb"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">email</span></a><span style= "font-weight: 400;">.</span></p> <h2><strong>Julie’s Biggest Takeaways</strong></h2> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">There are 3 elements to consider when working with potentially harmful biological agents:</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Biosafety: protecting the laboratory workers from the infectious agents in the lab.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Biocontainment: protecting the community by keeping the infectious agent contained within the facility.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Bioassurity: protecting the individual by ensuring those working with infectious agents are capable to do so.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">You need 4 bites of an APPLE for full lab safety, for work in labs from high school level through biosafety level 4:</span></p> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">A: Administration. Training, paperwork, etc.</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">P: Personal protective equipment (PPE). Varies from gloves to positive pressure suits, depending on the microorganisms under study.</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">PL: Laboratory procedures. Standard operating protocols.</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">E: Engineering. Biosafety cabinets and labs that have protective features.</span></li> </ul> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Most of the vector-borne flaviviruses, including Powassan virus, don’t cause overt disease in the people they infect, so many people never know they’ve been infected. Without serological surveys, it’s difficult to know the full range of infected individuals versus those that develop serious disease. Serious disease often manifests in neurological symptoms such as encephalitis, with 10-15% mortality rate; half of those suffering neurological disease will continue to have serious sequelae for years.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Rocky Mountain Labs was once the world reference center for ticks: it held thousands of samples which represented the type species for the entire world.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The tick salivary glands look like a bunch of grapes: the stem of the grapes is a series of branching ducts. The “grapes” at the end of the ducts are the acini, which is Latin for ‘little sac.’ These acini play a major role in tick feeding, and different types of acini play different functional roles:</span></p> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Type 1 acini: cells have no granules. Acini involved with fluid exchange.</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Type 2 and type 3 acini: cells with granules. Cells degranulate to release vasoactive compounds into tick saliva during feeding.</span></li> </ul> <h2><strong>Featured Quotes</strong></h2> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“The first isolation of Powassan virus was from a little boy in Powassan, Canada in 1958. If you look at the cases over the years, the numbers are going up, but compared to Lyme disease, they’re pretty low: there’s been less than 200 cases, all told.”</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“Amazingly, the Powassan virus can be transmitted in as little as 15 minutes….[and] a female tick can take days to get a full meal.”</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“I take a tick-centric view. If I can anthropomorphize, as my old friend Stanley Falkow used to say, he’d say ‘think like the microbe.’ The microbe doesn’t really care if we get sick or not. The microbe is just trying to make a living and survive.”</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“One of the really surprising things is that infected ticks can infect uninfected ticks, if they are feeding right next to each other. Ticks like to feed in groups: it’s called co-feeding. The virus can transferred really quickly, 15 min, which is way faster than the virus can go through a replication cycle. What that means to me is that the ticks are infecting each other….we want to investigate the role of co-feeding.”</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“If something sounds like fun or sounds important, and especially if something sounds fun AND important, then you should do it.”</span></p> <p><strong>Links for this Episode:</strong></p> <ul> <li><a href= "https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1807870"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Paules CI</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">et al</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. Tickborne Diseases--Confronting a Growing Threat.</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">New England Journal of Medicine</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">. August 2018.</span></a><strong><br /></strong></li> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;">Amazon:</span> <a href= "https://www.amazon.com/Fighting-spotted-Rockies-Esther-Gaskins/dp/B0007DVBEO"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Fighting Spotted Fever in the Rockies</span></a> <span style="font-weight: 400;">by Esther Gaskins Price </span><strong><br /></strong></li> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;">New York Times:</span> <a href= "https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/28/us/politics/kay-hagan-dead.html"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Kay Hagan obituary</span></a><strong><br /></strong></li> <li><a href= "https://mbio.asm.org/content/10/1/e02628-18.long"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Grabowski JM</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">et al</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. Dissecting Flavivirus Biology in Salivary Gland Cultures from Fed and Unfed</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Ixodes scapularis</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">(Black-Legged Tick).</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">mBio</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. January 2019.</span></a><strong><br /></strong></li> <li><a href= "https://www.instagram.com/asmicrobiology/"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> ASM on Instagram</span></a><strong><br /></strong></li> <li><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6350930/"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> Grabowski JM, Offerdahl DK, and Bloom ME. The Use of</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Ex Vivo</span></em> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Organ Cultures in Tick-Borne Virus Research.</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">ACS Infectious Disease.</span></em> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Marhc 2018.</span></a><strong><br /></strong></li> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;">Twitter thread from @BugQuestions:</span> <a href= "https://twitter.com/BugQuestions/status/1270181604623777793"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever and Howard Ricketts</span></a></li> <li><strong><span style="font-weight: 400;">History of Microbiology Tidbit:</span> <a href= "https://www.aphis.usda.gov/aphis/ourfocus/internationalservices/sterile_fly_release_programs/screwworm/screwworm_history"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">A Short History of the Screwworm Program</span></a><br /></strong></li> </ul>
Listen:
130: Bioremediation of oil spills with Joel Kostka
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">What kinds of microorganisms can degrade oil? How do scientists prioritize ecosystems for bioremediation after an oil spill? Joel Kostka discusses his research and the lessons from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill that will help scientists be better prepared for oil spills of the future.</span></p> <p><strong>Links for this Episode:</strong></p> <ul> <li><a href="http://www.joelkostka.net/"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Joel Kostka Lab Website</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://aem.asm.org/content/77/22/7962.abstract"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Kostka J.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">et al</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. Hydrocarbon-Degrading Bacteria and the Bacterial Community Response in Gulf of Mexico Beach Sands Impacted by the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Applied and Environmental Microbiology</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">. 2011.</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31852991/?from_term=joel+kostka&from_page=2&from_pos=1"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Shin B.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">et al</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. Succession of Microbial Populations and Nitroget-Fixation Associated With the Biodegradation of Sediment-Oil-Agglomerates Buried in a Florida Sandy Beach.</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Scientific Reports</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">. 2019.</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31296898/?from_term=joel+kostka&from_pos=7"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Bociu I. Decomposition of Sediment-Oil-Agglomerates in a Gulf of Mexico Sandy Beach.</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Scientific Reports</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">. 2019.</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24356826/?from_single_result=W.+A.+Overholt%2C+S.+J.+Green%2C+K.+P.+Marks%2C+R.+Venkatramanan%2C+O.+Prakash%2C+and+J.+E.+Kostka.+2013.+Draft+Genome+Sequences+for+Oil-Degrading+Bacterial+Strains+from+Beach+Sands+Impacted+by+the+Deepwater+Horizon+Oil+Spill.+Genome+Announcements+doi%3A+10.1128%2FgenomeA.01015-13+Genome+Announc.+1%3A+e01015-13.&expanded_search_query=W.+A.+Overholt%2C+S.+J.+Green%2C+K.+P.+Marks%2C+R.+Venkatramanan%2C+O.+Prakash%2C+and+J.+E.+Kostka.+2013.+Draft+Genome+Sequences+for+Oil-Degrading+Bacterial+Strains+from+Beach+Sands+Impacted+by+the+Deepwater+Horizon+Oil+Spill.+Genome+Announcements+doi%3A+10.1128%2FgenomeA.01015-13+Genome+Announc.+1%3A+e01015-13."> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Overhold W.A.</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">et al</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. Draft Genome Sequences for Oil-Degrading Bacterial Strains from Beach Sands Impacted by the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Genome Announcements</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. 2013.</span></a></li> <li><a href="https://gulfresearchinitiative.org/"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://www.asmscience.org/content/colloquia.58"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">ASM Colloquia Report: Microbial Genomics of the Global Ocean System</span></a></li> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;">ASM Article:</span> <a href= "https://asm.org/Articles/2019/March/Microbiomes-An-Origin-Story"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> Microbiomes: An Origin Story</span></a></li> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;">Joyful Microbe Blog:</span> <a href="https://justinedees.com/winogradsky-column/"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">How to make a Winogradsky column</span></a><br /> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Small Things Considered:</span> <a href="https://bit.ly/3dU9d7w"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">How to Build a Giant Winogradsky Column</span></a></li> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;"><a href= "https://asm.org/books">20% off The Invisible ABCs</a> for MTM listeners! Use promo code: <strong>ABC20</strong> at checkout.</span></li> </ul>
Listen:
129: Arbovirus evolution with Greg Ebel
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">How do arboviruses evolve as they pass between different hosts? Greg Ebel discusses his research on West Nile virus evolution and what it means for viral diversity. He also talks about using mosquitos’ most recent blood meal to survey human health in a process called xenosurveillance.</span></p> <p><strong>Julie’s Biggest Takeaways:</strong></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mosquitoes and other arthropods have limited means of immune defense against infection. One major defense mechanism is RNA interference (RNAi). RNAi uses pieces of the West Nile viral genome to select against the viral genome, which helps select for broadly diverse viral sequences. The more rare a viral genotype, the more likely it is to escape negative selection inside the mosquito host, allowing this viral sequence to increase in frequency. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">West Nile virus passes largely between birds and mosquitos.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Culex</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">mosquitos tend to prefer birds, and this leads to an enzootic cycle for the virus passing between birds and mosquitos. The viral life cycle inside the mosquito has several important steps: </span></p> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The virus first enters as part of the mosquito blood meal. </span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The virus infects epithelial cells of the mosquito midgut.</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">After 3-5 days, the virus leaves the midgut (midgut escape) to enter the mosquito hemolymph.</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">In the next mosquito blood meal, virus is expelled with saliva, which has anticoagulant activity.</span></li> </ul> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">West Nile virus selection undergoes cycles of selection as it passes from vertebrates (mostly birds) to invertebrates (mosquitos):</span></p> <ul> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;">In vertebrates, the virus must escape to cause viremia in a short period of time for replication to occur before the immune system recognizes and eliminates the virus.</span> <ul> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;">This leads to purifying selection, or elimination of amino acid variation that decreases viral protein function.</span></li> </ul> </li> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;">In mosquitos, the virus spends several days in the midgut epithelial cells and then hemolymph, leading to a longer selection time.</span></li> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;">This leads to more viral diversity in the mosquito host. RNAi further drives population diversity. Through stochasticity, a single viral population will often come to dominate a single infected mosquito.</span></li> </ul> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">How do scientists know which virus replicates best? Competitive fitness tests measure which virus grows to a higher population in a given environment. A manipulated virus (one passaged in a mosquito or selectively mutated at distinct sequences) and its non-manipulated parent sequence are inoculated at known proportions, and given a certain amount of time to replicate. By measuring the final proportions, Greg and his team can determine which sequence was more fit in that given environment.</span><span style= "font-weight: 400;"> </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Xenosurveillance uses mosquitoes to detect a wide array of pathogens at clinically relevant levels. Testing began with</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">in vitro</span></em> <span style="font-weight: 400;">blood-bag feeding, and was validated with studies in Liberia and Senegal. The microorganism sequences are so diverse that the information was used to identify novel human viruses. These studies also provide insight into mosquito feeding habits, which helps in disease modeling.</span></p> <p><strong>Links for this Episode:</strong><span style= "font-weight: 400;"> </span></p> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><a href= "http://ebel.colostate.edu/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Greg Ebel Lab Website</span></a></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30959110"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Rückert C. et al. Small RNA Responses of Culex Mosquitoes and Cell Lines during Acute and Persistent Virus Infection. Insect Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. 2019.</span></a></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28445723"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Grubaugh N.D.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">et al.</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">Mosquitoes Transmit Unique West Nile Virus Populations during Each Feeding Episode.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Cell Reports</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. 2017.</span></a></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27788400"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Grubaugh N.D. and Ebel G.D. Dynamics of West Nile Virus Evolution in Mosquito Vectors.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Current Opinion in Virology</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">. 2016.</span></a></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29561834"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Fauver J.R.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">et al</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. Xenosurveillance Reflects Traditional Sampling Techniques for the Identification of Human Pathogens: A Comparative Study in West Africa.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">. 2018.</span></a></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28722623"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Fauver J.R. The Use of Xenosurveillance to Detect Human Bacteria, Parasites, and Viruses in Mosquito Bloodmeals.</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. 2017.</span></a></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><a href= "https://bit.ly/3b3x7MK"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Tracey McNamera: Canaries in the Coal Mine TEDxUCLA</span></a></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><a href= "https://nyti.ms/2JXGeTh"><span style="font-weight: 400;">New York Times: Encephalitis Outbreak Teaches an Old Lesson. 1999.</span></a></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><a href= "https://asm.org/Articles/2019/July/The-One-Health-of-Animals,-Humans,-and-Our-Planet"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">ASM Article: The One Health of Animals, Humans, and Our Planet: It’s All Microbially Connected</span></a></li> </ul> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;"> </span></p> <p> </p>
Listen:
128: Managing Plant Pathogens Using Streptomyces with Linda Kinkel
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">How can the intricate relationship between soil microbiota and plants be managed for improved plant health? Linda Kinkel discusses new insights into the plant rhizosphere and the ways that some</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Streptomyces</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">isolates can protect agricultural crops against bacterial, fungal, oomycete, and nematode infections.</span></p> <p><strong>Julie’s Biggest Takeaways</strong><span style= "font-weight: 400;">:</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The soil microbiome is extremely dynamic, with boom-and-bust cycles driven by nutrient fluxes, microbial interactions, plant-driven microbial interactions, and signaling interactions. Finding the source of these boom-and-bust cycles can help people to manage the microbiome communities and produce plant-beneficial communities for agricultural purposes. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Rhizosphere soil is soil closely associated with the root and is distinct from rhizoplane soil that directly touches the root. The endophytic rhizosphere are those microbes that get inside the root. Many scientists view these communities as a continuum rather than sharply delineated.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Plants provide necessary carbon for the largely heterotrophic soil microbiota, and these microorganisms help the plants in several ways too: </span></p> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Microbes mediate plant growth by production of plant growth hormones.</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Microbes provide nutrients through mechanisms like nitrogen fixation or phosphorus solubilization.</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Microbes protect the plant from stress or drought conditions.</span></li> </ul> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Through a University of Minnesota plant pathology program, potatos were passaged in a field for over 2 decades to study potato diseases. Over time, researchers found fewer diseases in test crops, which led the plot to be abandoned in the late 1970s. In the 1980s, Dr. Neil Anderson planted potatoes to see if they would develop disease, but neither</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Verticillium</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">wilt nor potato scab developed among the plants. Soil from the field (and on the potatoes) contained</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Streptomyces</span></em> <span style="font-weight: 400;">isolates that showed antimicrobial activity against bacteria, fungi, nematodes, and oomycetes. This discovery led Neil, new University of Minnesota professor Linda, and their collaborators to study the antimicrobial activity of natural</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Streptomyces</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">isolates from around the world.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Inoculation quickly adds specific microbial lineages to soil microbiome communities. Alternatively, land can be managed by providing nutrients to encourage the growth of specific species, like</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Streptomyces</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">, within a given plot, but this takes longer to develop. How are soil microbiomes inoculated? Microbes can be:</span></p> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Added to the seed coating before planting. </span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Placed in the furrow when the seed is planted.</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Distributed into the irrigation system.</span></li> </ul> <p><strong>Links for this Episode</strong><span style= "font-weight: 400;">:</span></p> <ul> <li><a href= "https://plpa.cfans.umn.edu/people/faculty/linda-kinkel"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> Linda Kinkel website at University of Minnesota</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31424591"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Essarioui A.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">et al</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. Inhibitory and Nutrient Use Phenotypes Among Coexisting</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Fusarium</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">and</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Streptomyces</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">Populations Suggest Local Coevolutionary Interactions in Soil.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Environmental Microbiology</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">. 2020.</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31671139"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Schlatter D.C.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">et al</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. Inhibitory Interaction Networks Among Coevolved</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Streptomyces</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">Populations from Prairie Soils.</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">PLoS One</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">. 2019. </span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23959115"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Schlatter D.C.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">et al</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. Resource Use of Soilborne</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Streptomyces</span></em> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Varies with Location, Phylogeny, and Nitrogen Amendment.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Microbial Ecology</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. 2013.</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://schaechter.asmblog.org/schaechter/2009/11/fiv-1.html"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> Small Things Considered blog: Are Oomycetes Fungi or What?</span></a></li> <li><a href= "http://www.fao.org/plant-health-2020/about/en/"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">International Year of Plant Health</span></a></li> <li><a href="https://go.nature.com/3d4TwdR"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">HOM Tidbit: Austin-Bourke P.M. Emergence of Potato Blight, 1843-1846.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Nature</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. 1965.</span></a></li> </ul> <p> </p>
Listen:
127: E. coli and Burkholderia vaccines with Alfredo Torres
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Pathogenic</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">E. coli</span></em> <span style="font-weight: 400;">are different than lab-grown or commensal</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">E. coli</span></em> <span style="font-weight: 400;">found in the gut microbiome. Alfredo Torres describes the difference between these, the method his lab is using the develop vaccines against pathogenic</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">E. coli</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">, and how this same method can be used to develop vaccines against</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Burkholderia</span></em> <span style="font-weight: 400;">infections.</span></p> <p><strong>Julie’s Biggest Takeaways:</strong></p> <ol> <li><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">coli</span></em> <span style="font-weight: 400;">plays many roles inside and outside the scientific laboratory:</span></li> </ol> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Laboratory</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">E. coli</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">strains used by scientists to study molecular biology.</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Commensal</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">E. coli</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">strains contribute to digestion and health as part of the intestinal microbiome.</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Pathogenic</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">E. coli</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">strains have acquired factors that allow them to cause disease in people</span></li> </ul> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The pathogenic</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">E. coli</span></em> <span style="font-weight: 400;">associated with diarrheal disease are the ones named for their O-antigen and flagellar H-antigen, such as O157:H7. There are about 30</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">E. coli</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">strains with various combinations of O-H factors known to cause diarrheal disease in people. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">E. coli</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">Shiga toxin (though not the bacterium itself) can pass through the epithelial cell layer to become systemic, and eventually the toxin will accumulate in the kidneys. This can lead to patients experiencing hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) and kidney failure, leading to lifelong dialysis or need for a transplant. An immune response that prevents the</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">E. coli</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">from attaching will prevent the bacterium from secreting toxin in close proximity to the epithelial cells and decrease likelihood of HUS development.</span></p> <p><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Burkholderia</span></em> <span style="font-weight: 400;">is a bacterial genus whose member species have been weaponized in the past, and which remain potent disease-causing agents around the world. </span></p> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">B. mallei</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">causes glanders, a disease mostly of horses and their handlers. It is a respiratory infection that can become systemic if not treated.</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">B. pseudomallei</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">causes melioidosis, a disease that can manifest in many ways. It is endemic in many tropical regions around the world, found in over 79 countries so far.</span></li> </ul> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Coating gold nanoparticles with antigens against which the immune response will be protective is a method Alfredo has used for a number of candidate vaccines, including one against</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">E. coli</span></em> <span style="font-weight: 400;">and one against</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">B. pseudomallei.</span></em> <span style="font-weight: 400;">The nanoparticles can have the gold cleaved off to provide different functional variants of the same vaccine. </span></p> <p><strong>Links for this Episode:</strong></p> <ul> <li><a href= "https://microbiology.utmb.edu/faculty/alfredo-torres-phd"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> Alfredo Torres webpage at University of Texas Medical Branch</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://www.asmscience.org/content/journal/microbiolspec/10.1128/microbiolspec.EHEC-0003-2013"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">McWilliams BD and Torres AG. Enterohemorrhagic</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Escherichia coli</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">Adhesins.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Microbiology Spectrum</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. 2013.</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://mbio.asm.org/content/10/4/e01869-19.long"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Sanchez-Villamil JI</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">et al</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. Development of a Gold Nanoparticle Vaccine against Enterohemorrhagic</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Escherichia coli</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">O157:H7.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">mBio</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. 2019.</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29388572"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Wiersinga WJ</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">et al</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. Melioidosis.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Nature Reviews Disease Primers</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">. 2018. </span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31306423"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Khakhum N.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">et al</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. Evaluation of</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Burkholderia mallei</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">ΔtonB Δhcp1 (CLH001) as a live attenuated vaccine in murine models of glanders and melioidosis.</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">. 2019.</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://www.galvnews.com/opinion/guest_columns/article_f23019d4-dab8-5c00-bb8e-b49dbdbc565d.html"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Torres AG. Common Sense Can Keep You Safe in E. coli Outbreak.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Galveston County Daily News.</span></em> <span style="font-weight: 400;">2020.</span></a></li> <li><a href="https://www.abrcms.org/"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">ABRCMS: Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://asm.org/Podcasts/MTM/Episodes/Burholderia-pseudomallei-and-the-Neglected-Tropica"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">MTM: Burkholderia pseudomallei & the neglected tropical disease melioidosis with Direk Limmathurotsakul</span></a></li> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;">HOM Tidbit:</span> <a href= "https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/29/5/1303/344334"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> Kiyoshi Shiga Biography in Clinical Infectious Diseases</span></a></li> </ul> <p> </p>
Listen:
126: Placental biology, infection and immunity with Carolyn Coyne
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Does the fetus have a microbiome? How does the placenta prevent infection? Carolyn Coyne talks about placental structure and biology, and why studying the maternal-fetal interface remains a critical area of research.</span></p> <p><strong>Julie’s Biggest Takeaways:</strong></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The placenta forms within 3-5 days post conception as a single layer of cells surrounding the fertilized embryo. These cells differentiate and develop into more complex structures.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Very few microbes cause fetal disease. Of those that do, the disease-causing microorganisms are diverse and can lead to serious congenital defects or even death of a developing fetus. These microbes are largely grouped into the TORCH (now TORCH-Z) microorganisms:</span></p> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Toxoplasma gondii</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Other (a variety of different bacteria and viruses)</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Rubella</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Cytomegalovirus</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Herpesviruses</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Zika virus</span></li> </ul> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The fetus is immunologically immature and unable to protect itself. Some of the maternal immunological molecules (such as maternal antibodies) cross the placenta to protect the fetus, but that only happens during later stages of fetal development. Between the first and second trimesters, the maternal vasculature reorganizes and maternal antibodies can begin to reach the fetus. This increases over time, until the end of the third trimester, when there is a higher concentration of maternal antibodies in fetal blood than in maternal blood.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In the later stages of development, the placenta is coated in a layer of fused cells, leading to a shared cytoplasm that covers the entire surface area of the placenta. This fused-cell layer is formed from syncytiotrophoblasts, and the fusion is facilitated by the activity of an endogenous retrovirus fusion protein.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Syncytiotrophoblasts are extremely resistant to infection with a number of different pathogens, and pathogen types. In initial tests experiments, Carolyn and her research team discovered that these cells releasing certain antimicrobial molecules to share protective properties. Syncytiotrophoblasts secrete type III interferons, which play a big role at barrier surfaces such as the airway and the gut—but unlike these barriers, the syncytiotrophoblast cells secrete type III interferons constitutively.</span></p> <p><strong>Links for this Episode:</strong></p> <ul> <li><a href= "https://www.pediatrics.pitt.edu/people/carolyn-coyne-phd"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> Carolyn Coyne Website on the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://www.cell.com/cell-host-microbe/fulltext/S1931-3128(17)30153-1"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Arora N.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">et al</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. Microbial Vertical Transmission during Human Pregnancy.</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Cell Host & Microbe</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">. May 2017. </span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article?id=10.1371/journal.ppat.1005515"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Coyne C.B. The Tree(s) of Life: The Human Placenta and My Journey to Learn More About It.</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">PLoS Pathogens</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">. April 2016.</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://mbio.asm.org/content/9/1/e01678-17.long"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Ander S.E.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">et al</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. Human Placental Syncytiotrophoblasts Restrict</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Toxoplasma gondii</span></em> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Attachment and Replication and Respond to Infection by Producing Immunomodulatory Chemokines.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">mBio</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. January 2018.</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30219309"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Wells A.I. and Coyne C.B. Type III Interferons in Antiviral Defenses at Barrier Surfaces.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Trends in Immunology</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. October 2018. </span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30635356"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Ander S.E. Diamond M.S. and Coyne C.B. Immune Responses at the Materna-Fetal Interface.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Science Immunology</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. January 2019.</span></a></li> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;">HOM Tidbit:</span> <a href= "http://bit.ly/2Slf0uC"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Women in Microbiology</span></a></li> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;">HOM Tidbit:</span> <a href= "http://bit.ly/2HgO4Wy"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Small Things Considered blog post: Retroviruses, the Placenta, and the Genomic Junk Drawer</span></a></li> </ul> <p> </p>
Listen:
125: Coronavirus Antiviral Drug Discovery with Timothy Sheahan
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Are there drugs that can treat coronaviruses? Timothy Sheahan talks about his drug discovery work on a compound that can inhibit all coronaviruses tested so far, and tells how his career path took him to pharmaceutical antiviral research and then back to academia.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Julie’s Biggest Takeaways:</strong></span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Even though the MERS-CoV was discovered as a human pathogen in 2012, it was likely percolating as a disease agent for a long time before that. Banked camel serum provides evidence that the virus had been circulating in camels for several decades prior.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Differentiated ex vivo lung cultures allow study of virus infection in a 3D model representation for studying viral infection, including target cell types of both MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV.</span></p> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">SARS-CoV prefers ciliated epithelial cells Ace2</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">MERS-CoV prefers nonciliated epithelial cells DPP4</span></li> </ul> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Coronavirus disease in people takes place over a course of about 2 weeks. In mice, the disease is similar, but progression is faster, taking about 1 week. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The drug remdesivir (RDV) is a nucleoside analog that inhibits the coronavirus RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RDRP). Remdesivir activity has not been tested against nCoV2019, but similarity to other viruses is promising. Bioinformatic approaches show that the nCoV2019 RDRP is 99% similar and 96% identical to SARS-CoV RDRP. Remdesivir works against every coronavirus tested so far, including viruses with highly divergent RDRP sequences, so remdesivir is likely to be effective again nCoV2019. Experiments must still be performed before reaching this conclusion, of course.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Tim also hopes to discover the genetic determinants that will allow a chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection in mice, but not standard inbred mice. He uses outbred mice meant to mimic the diversity of the human population, and strengthen the results. Understanding these determinants would inform human studies to better understand chronic HCV infection.</span></p> <p><strong>Links for this Episode:</strong></p> <ul> <li> <p><a href="https://asm.org/mtmpoll/"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">MTM Listener Survey</span></a><span style= "font-weight: 400;">, only takes 3 minutes. Thanks!</span></p> </li> <li> <p><a href="http://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-584/"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">TWiV 584: Year of the Coronavirus</span></a></p> </li> <li><a href= "https://sph.unc.edu/adv_profile/timothy-sheahan-phd/"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Timothy Sheahan website at University of North Carolina</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28659436"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Sheahan T.P.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">et al</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. Broad-Spectrum Antiviral GS-5734 Inhibits both Epidemic and Zoonotic Coronaviruses.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Science Tranlational Medicine</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">. 2017.</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31924756"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Sheahan T.P.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">et al</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. Comparative Therapeutic Efficacy of Remdesivir and Combination Lopinavir, Ritonavir, and Interferon Beta against MERS-CoV.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Nature Communications</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. 2020.</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://mbio.asm.org/content/9/2/e00221-18.long"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Agostini M.L.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">et al</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. Coronavirus Susceptibility to the Antiviral Remdesivir (GS-5734) is Mediated by the Viral Polymerase and the Proofreading Exoribonuclease.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">mBio</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. 2018.</span></a></li> <li><a href="http://bit.ly/ASMCoronavirus"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">ASM Coronavirus Resource Page</span></a></li> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;">HOM Tidbit:</span> <a href= "https://www.pnas.org/content/51/3/450"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Baltimore D.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">In Vitro</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">Synthesis of Viral RNA by the Poliovirus RNA Polymerase.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">PNAS</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. 1964.</span></a></li> </ul> <p> </p>
Listen:
124: Gastroenteritis Viruses with Mary Estes
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Viral gastroenteritis around the world causes 200,000 deaths globally each year. Mary Estes talks about her work on 2 gastroenteritis-causing viruses, rotavirus and norovirus, and tells the story of her discovery of the first viral enterotoxin. She also describes how noroviruses have changed from human volunteer studies to studies using “miniguts,” a system now used with many enteropathogenic microorganisms.</span></p> <p><strong>Julie’s Biggest Takeaways:</strong></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Rotaviruses and noroviruses kill 200,000 people annually, despite an available rotavirus vaccine and current anti-infective measures. Rotavirus is generally associated with gastrointestinal disease in the very young and the very old, while norovirus infects people at all life stages.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Rotavirus is so stable that even when viral samples are extremely dessicated by lyophilization, the samples remain perfectly infectious. Rotavirus stability is largely due to 3 concentric capsid cells.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">NSP4 is a rotavirus enterotoxin, and the first viral enterotoxin to be discovered. It affects the concentration of the intracellular calcium pools. By activating the calcium chloride channel, NSP4 forces chloride and water to be excreted, directly leading to diarrhea. NSP4 is secreted from infected cells and can also disrupt calcium concentrations of neighboring cells, amplifying the effect of a single infected cell.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Rotarix® and RotaTeq® are 2 different attenuated rotavirus vaccines. One contains a single attenuated viral strain while the other contains 5 attenuated viral strains; both vaccines have high efficacy in developed countries and slightly lower efficacy in developing countries. Why vaccine efficacy is lower in developing countries is uncertain, with many hypotheses including microbiome-based effects under study now.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Human enteroids, or “miniguts,” offer insight into complex virus-cell interactions. These stem-cell derived miniguts can be generated from different types of animal stem cells, and the enteroids they become reflect the same host-barrier restriction as the animal of origin. The miniguts can be used to culture many sorts of viruses and other microorganisms, such as bacteria and protozoa.</span></p> <p><strong>Links for this Episode:</strong></p> <ul> <li><a href= "https://www.bcm.edu/people/view/mary-estes-ph-d/b211e57a-ffed-11e2-be68-080027880ca6"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Mary Estes Website at Baylor College of Medicine</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://mbio.asm.org/content/1/5/e00265-10"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Hyser J.M.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">et al</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. Rotavirus Disrupts Calcium Homeostasis by NSP4 Viroporin Activity.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">mBio</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. 2010.</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31597778"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Crawford S.E.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">et al</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. COPII Vesicle Transport is Required for Rotavirus NSP4 Interaction with the Autophagy Protein LC3 II and Trafficking to Viroplasms.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">J Virology.</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">2019.</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27562956"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Ettayebi K.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">et al</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. Replication of Human Noroviruses in Stem Cell-Derived Human Enteroids.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Science</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. 2016.</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27677718"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">In J.G.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">et al</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. Human Mini-Guts: New Insignts into Intestinal Physiology and Host-Pathogen Interactions.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Nat Rev Gastroenterol Hepatol.</span></em> <span style="font-weight: 400;">2016.</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://mbio.asm.org/content/3/4/e00159-12.long"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Finkbeiner S.R.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">et al</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. Stem Cell-Derived Human Intestinal Organoids as an Infection Model for Rotaviruses.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">mBio</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. 2012.</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4949163/"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> Henning S.J. and Estes M.K. Women in Science: Hints for Success.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Gastroenterology</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. 2015.</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC356579/"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Kapikian A.Z.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">et al</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. Visualization of a 27-nm Particle Associated with Acute Infectious Nonbacterial Gastroenteritis.</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Journal of Virology</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">. 1972.</span></a></li> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;">HOM Tidbit:</span> <a href= "http://bit.ly/2t6blXM"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Smith K.N. The Iron Long was just an Engineer’s Side Project.</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Forbes</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. 2019.</span></a></li> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;">HOM Tidbit:</span> <a href= "http://bit.ly/2N8lxWE"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Ramirez M. Living Inside a Canister: Dallas Polio Survivor is One of Few People Left in U.S. Using Iron Lung.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Dallas Morning Star</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. 2018.</span></a></li> </ul> <p> </p>
Listen:
123: SAR11 and Other Marine Microbes with Steve Giovannoni
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The most abundant organism on Earth lives in its seas: the marine bacterium SAR11. Steve Giovannoni describes how the origins of SAR11 provided its name, and the ways that studying SAR11 have taught scientists about ocean ecology. He also discusses how the different depths of the ocean vary in their microbial compositions and what his big questions are in marine microbiology.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Different depths of the ocean have different habitats, but the microbes vary continuously, based in part on light availability:</span></p> <ul> <li>Surface light facilitates photosynthesis by algal cells. These primary producers fix carbon for the entire ecosystem! Because nutrients are readily available, the cell concentration in surface waters can reach nearly 1,000,000 cells/ml.</li> <li>The twilight zone offers dim light. Microbes in this area mainly use carbon sources generated by the surface-dwelling microbes. Below a few hundred meters, cell concentrations drop to 10,000-100,000 cells/ml.</li> <li>The deep ocean has no light and the microbes that live here have significantly different biochemistries and metabolisms.</li> </ul> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">SAR11 is small in both physical size and genome size (0.37–0.89 µm and 1.3 million base pairs, respectively). It is nevertheless the most abundant organism on the planet, with more than 10<sup>28</sup> cells estimated to exist worldwide. These cells convert between 6-37% of the carbon fixed in the oceans daily. SAR11 in different niches have ecotypes with different specialties but look physically similar and have very similar genome sequences.<br /> <br /> Naturally, the most abundant cells in the ocean have the most abundant parasites: bacteriophages called pelagiphages infect SAR11 all over the world. SAR11 and pelagiphages are under constant evolution, though there doesn’t seem to be a CRISPR system in the Pelagibacter genome; these bacteria largely use other mechanisms to evade phage infection.<br /> <br /> SAR11 is like a house with the lights on all the time, in that the cells constitutively express most metabolic genes. For example, SAR11 metabolizes dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP) into dimethyl sulfide (DMS) and methanethiol (MeSH), which can be produced as soon as the cells are exposed to DMSP. While this may seem energetically expensive, the cells must capitalize on their encounters with this transient resource, often found only at low concentrations, and this capitalization requires the investment of protein production. The cost of metabolic gene regulation outweighs the benefits in this particular case.<br /> <br /> SAR11 and SAR202 are the poles on the spectrum of heterotrophic marine bacteria. SAR11 is very efficient at accessing and using the organic compounds that come from the phytoplankton (also called the labile organic matter). SAR202, found in the deeper part of the ocean, specializes in hard-to-access carbon compounds that other bacteria can’t access.</span></p> <h2><strong>Links for This Episode</strong></h2> <div dir="ltr" style= "line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: #ffffff; text-decoration: none;"> <ul dir="ltr"> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;"><a href= "https://asm.org/mtmpoll/">MTM Listener Survey</a>, only takes 3 minutes. Thanks!</span></li> <li><a href= "https://microbiology.science.oregonstate.edu/dr-stephen-giovannoni" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Stephen Giovannoni website</a> at Oregon State University</li> <li><a href="https://microbiology.science.oregonstate.edu/htcl" target="_blank" rel="noopener">OSU High Throughput Microbial Cultivation Lab</a></li> <li>Carini P. et al. <a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24781899" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">Discovery of SAR11 Growth Requirement for Thiamin’s Pyrimidine Precursor and its Distribution in the Sargasso Sea</a>. ISME J. 2014.</li> <li>Sun J. et al. <a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27573103" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">The Abundant Marine Bacterium Pelagibacter Simultaneously Catabolizes Dimethylsulfoniopropionate to the Gases Dimethyl Sulfide and Methanethiol.</a> Nature Microbiology. 2016.</li> <li>Moore E.R. et al. <a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31736179" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">Pelagibacter Metabolism of Diatom-Derived Volatile Organic Compounds Imposes an Energetic Tax on Photosynthetic Carbon Fixation.</a> Environmental Microbiology. 2019.</li> <li>HOM Tidbit: <a href= "http://web.gps.caltech.edu/classes/ge246/endosymbiotictheory_marguli.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Sagan L. On the Origin of Mitosing Cells.</a> 1967.</li> <li>HOM Tidbit: <a href= "https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/cellmates" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Cellmates (Radiolab podcast episode)</a></li> <li>ASM Article: <a href="http://bit.ly/2PDMl2V" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Origin of Eukaryotes: Where Science and Pop Culture Collide</a></li> </ul> </div> <p> </p>
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122: Prions and Chronic Wasting Disease with Jason Bartz
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Can a protein be contagious? Jason Bartz discusses his work on prion proteins, which cause spongiform encephalopathy and can be transmitted by ingestion or inhalation among some animals. He further discusses how prions can exist as different strains, and what techniques may help improve diagnosis of subclinical infections.</span></p> <p><strong>Links for this Episode:</strong></p> <ul> <li><a href= "https://medschool.creighton.edu/faculty-directory-profile/100493/jason-bartz"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Jason Bartz Creighton University website</span></a><span style= "font-weight: 400;"><br /></span></li> <li><a href= "https://msphere.asm.org/content/4/5/e00630-19"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Holec SAM, Yuan Q, and Bartz JC. Alteration of Prion Strain Emergence by Nonhost Factors.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">mSphere</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. 2019.</span></a><span style= "font-weight: 400;"><br /></span></li> <li><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29386284"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Yuan Q</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">et al</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. Dehydration of Prions on Environmentally Relevant Surfaces Protects Them from Inactivation by Freezing and Thawing.</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Journal of Virology</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">. 2018.</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br /></span></li> <li><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27908925"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Bartz JC. Prion Strain Diversity.</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Medicine</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">. 2016. </span></a><span style= "font-weight: 400;"><br /></span></li> <li><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27389026"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Bartz JC. From Slow Viruses to Prions</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">PLoS Pathogens</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">. 2016.</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br /></span></li> <li><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17535913"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Deleault NR, Harris BT, Rees JR, Supattapone S. Formation of native prions from minimal components in vitro.</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">2007.</span></a><span style= "font-weight: 400;"><br /></span></li> <li><a href= "https://www.npr.org/2019/11/15/779924717/episode-952-sperm-banks"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> Planet Money Episode 952: Sperm Banks</span></a></li> </ul> <p> </p>
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121: Microbial Interkingdom Interactions with Deb Hogan
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Microbial interactions drive microbial evolution, and in a polymicrobial infection, these interactions can determine patient outcome. Deb Hogan talks about her research on interkingdom interactions between the bacterium</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Pseudomonas</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">and the fungus</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Candida</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">, 2 organisms that can cause serious illness in cystic fibrosis patients’ lung infections. Her research aims to better characterize these interactions and to develop better diagnostic tools for assessing disease progression and treatment.</span></p> <p><strong>Links for this Episode:</strong></p> <ul> <li><a href="https://sites.dartmouth.edu/hoganlab/"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Deb Hogan Lab Website</span></a><span style= "font-weight: 400;"><br /></span></li> <li><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=(Hogan+DA%5BAuthor+Name%5D+OR+(Hogan+D%5BAuthor+Name%5D+AND+Kolter%5BAuthor+Name%5D))+NOT+(low+back+pain%5Btitle%5D)+NOT+Hogan+DAM"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Demers EG</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">et al</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. Evolution of Drug Resistance in an Antifungal-Naive Chronic</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Candida lusitaniae</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">Infection. PNAS. 2018.</span></a><span style= "font-weight: 400;"><br /></span></li> <li><a href= "https://jb.asm.org/content/201/18/e00285-19"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Lewis KA</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">et al</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. Ethanol Decreases</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Pseudomonas aeruginosa</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">Flagella Motility through the Regulation of Flagellar Stators.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Journal of Bacteriology</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. 2019.</span></a><span style= "font-weight: 400;"><br /></span></li> <li><a href="https://iai.asm.org/content/84/10/2995"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Gifford AH</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">et al</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. Use of a Multiplex Transcript Method for Analysis of</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Pseudomonas aeruginosa</span></em> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Gene Expression Profiles in the Cystic Fibrosis Lung.</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Infection and Immunity</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">. 2016.</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br /></span></li> <li><a href= "https://msphere.asm.org/content/3/4/e00292-18"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Grahl N</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">et al</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. Profiling of Bacterial and Fungal Microbial Communities in Cystic Fibrosis Sputum Using RNA.</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">mSphere</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. 2018.</span></a><span style= "font-weight: 400;"><br /></span></li> <li><a href= "https://asm.org/Articles/2019/April/Microbiology-Resource-of-the-Month-The-Aeminium-lu"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Microbiology Resource of the Month: The</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Aeminium ludgeri</span></em> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Genome Sequence</span></a><span style= "font-weight: 400;"><br /></span></li> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;">HOM Tidbit:</span> <a href= "https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0065216408705628"> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0065216408705628</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br /> </span></li> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;">HOM Tidbit:</span> <a href= "http://bit.ly/2QzOi19"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Frozen Potential of Microbial Collections</span></a></li> </ul> <p> </p>
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Bonus: Diagnosing C. diff Infections for Optimal Patient Outcomes with Colleen Kraft
<p>Why is C. diff such a serious disease and what are clinical microbiologists doing to improve patient outcomes with better diagnostic tools?</p>
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120: Antibiotic-Resistant Infections in Hospital Sinks with Amy Mathers
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Many hospital-acquired bacterial infections are also drug-resistant. Amy Mathers describes her work tracking these bacteria to their reservoir in hospital sinks, and what tools allowed her team to make these discoveries. Mathers also discusses her work on</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Klebsiella</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">, a bacterial pathogen for the modern era.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Subscribe (free) on</span> <a href= "https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/meet-the-scientist/id289419806?mt=2&ls=1"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Apple Podcasts</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">,</span> <a href="https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cDovL21lZXR0aGVzY2llbnRpc3QubWljcm9iZXdvcmxkLmxpYnN5bnByby5jb20vcnNz"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Google Podcasts</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">,</span> <a href="http://www.subscribeonandroid.com/meetthescientist.microbeworld.libsynpro.com/rss"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Android</span></a><span style= "font-weight: 400;">,</span> <a href= "http://meetthescientist.microbeworld.libsynpro.com/rss"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> RSS</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, or by</span> <a href="http://eepurl.com/c4MKHb"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">email</span></a><span style= "font-weight: 400;">.</span></p> <h2><strong>Julie’s Biggest Takeaways</strong></h2> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Nosocomial infections are a type of opportunistic infection: one that wouldn’t normally cause disease in healthy individuals. Once the immune system is compromised due to other infection or treatment, the opportunist bacteria take advantage of the conditions to grow to higher numbers and cause disease.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">How are different pathogens transmitted in the hospital? Previously, transmission was considered to occur from one patient to a second patient, perhaps via a healthcare worker. When patients from very different parts of the hospital began to come down with the same resistant strain of bacteria, without interacting through the same space or staff, researchers began to look at a different reservoir: the hospital wastewater.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">How does the bacteria get from the sink to the patients? The bacteria, existing in a biofilm in the pipe right below the drain, can be transferred in droplets when the water is run. These droplets can fall as far as 36 inches from the drain plate and can contaminate the sink bowl or patient care items next to the sink.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Some of the solutions to decrease bacterial dispersion from hospital sinks are very simple: for example, offsetting the drain from the tap, which keeps the water from directly running onto the drain, helps decrease the force with which the water hits the drain and therefore decreases bacterial dispersion.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Sink Lab at University of Virginia couldn’t replicate the bacterial growth patterns seen in the rest of the building; in particular, there were fewer protein nutrients that promoted bacterial growth. By setting up a camera observation of sink stations used in the hospital, the team realized that the waste thrown down the sink (extra soda, milk, soup, etc) was feeding the microbial biofilm. This helps the CRE in the biofilms in the sinks thrive.</span></p> <h2><strong>Links for This Episode</strong></h2> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><a href= "https://asm.org/mtmpoll/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">MTM Listener Survey</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, only takes 3 minutes. Thanks!</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><a href= "https://med.virginia.edu/pathology/contact/amy-mathers-md/"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> Amy Mathers website at University of Virginia</span></a></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><a href= "http://uvasinklab.org/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Sink Lab at UVA</span></a></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><a href= "https://aem.asm.org/content/85/2/e01997-18.long"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Kotay SM et al. Droplet- Rather than Aerosol-Mediated Dispersion is the Primary Mechanism of Bacterial Transmission from Contaminated Hand-Washing Sink Traps. Applied and Environmental Microbiology. 2018.</span></a></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><a href= "https://aac.asm.org/content/63/6/e02513-18"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Mather AJ et al. Klebsiella quasipneumoniae Provides a Windo into Carbapenemase Gene Transfer, Plasmid Rearrangements, and Patient Interactions within the Hospital Environment. Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy. 2018.</span></a></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><a href= "https://aem.asm.org/content/83/8/e03327-16"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Kotay S et al. Spread from the Sink to the Patient: in situ Study Using Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP)-Expressing Escherichia coli to Model Bacteral Dispersion from Hand-Washuing Sink-Trap Reservoirs. Applied and Environmental Microbiology. 2016.</span></a></li> </ul> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Let us know what you thought about this episode by tweeting at us</span> <a href= "http://twitter.com/ASMicrobiology"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">@ASMicrobiology</span></a> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">or leaving a comment on</span> <a href= "http://facebook.com/asmfan"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">facebook.com/asmfan</span></a><span style= "font-weight: 400;">.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Send your stories about our guests and/or your comments to jwolf@asmusa.org.</span></p> <p> </p>
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119: Microbiome Diversity and Structural Variation with Ami Bhatt
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">How do medical professionals incorporate microbiome science into their patient care? Ami Bhatt discusses her research on the diversity within and between human gut microbiomes, and how this research is slowly and carefully being used to build new patient care recommendations.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Subscribe (free) on</span> <a href= "https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/meet-the-scientist/id289419806?mt=2&ls=1"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Apple Podcasts</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">,</span> <a href="https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cDovL21lZXR0aGVzY2llbnRpc3QubWljcm9iZXdvcmxkLmxpYnN5bnByby5jb20vcnNz"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Google Podcasts</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">,</span> <a href="http://www.subscribeonandroid.com/meetthescientist.microbeworld.libsynpro.com/rss"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Android</span></a><span style= "font-weight: 400;">,</span> <a href= "http://meetthescientist.microbeworld.libsynpro.com/rss"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> RSS</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, or by</span> <a href="http://eepurl.com/c4MKHb"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">email</span></a><span style= "font-weight: 400;">.</span></p> <h2><strong>Julie’s Biggest Takeaways</strong></h2> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Although these terms are often used interchangeably, microbiome and microbiota represent distinct samples types:</span></p> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;"> <strong>Microbiota</strong><span style= "font-weight: 400;">represents all the organisms that live within a community: archaea, bacteria, viruses, and fungi.</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"> <strong>Microbiome</strong><span style="font-weight: 400;">is the genomes or transcriptomes of these organisms.</span></li> </ul> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The gut microbiota may often be referred to as a single entity, but the gastrointestinal tract has many different niches. Alterations in pH, cell type, and the available nutrients provide different selective pressures for the microorganisms that reside in these conditions.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">By clustering small proteins based on similarity, Ami’s group was able to identify over 4000 new families of small proteins from existing microbiome datasets. Some of these were found among all microbiome datasets while others were found only in human microbiomes, which provides a clue to their potential housekeeping versus host-microbe-interaction functionality, although the exact functions are still unknown.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Outcomes for non-infectious diseases are affected by the gut microbiome. Ami and her colleagues have worked with transplant patients to understand what type of diversity and which strains play a role in best outcome for cancer therapy patients, such as patients receiving bone marrow transplants. Medical doctors are beginning to incorporate new patient care in light of new microbiome studies.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Understanding the effects of the gut microbiome on human health have helped slowly change patient care in some settings. For example, doctors are reconsidering recommendations for immunocompromised people to stay away from fresh fruits and vegetables, a recommendation previously made due to the potential risk of patients exposure to pathogenic microbes. The benefit of a wide variety of fiber sources, which promote a diverse and robust microbiome, may turn out to outweigh this risk.</span></p> <h2><strong>Links for This Episode</strong></h2> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><a href= "https://asm.org/mtmpoll/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">MTM Listener Survey</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, only takes 3 minutes. Thanks!</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><a href= "http://www.bhattlab.com/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Ami Bhatt lab website</span></a></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><a href= "http://www.bhattlab.com/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Brewster R. et al. Surveying Gut Microbiome Research in Africans: Toward Improved Diversity and Representation. Trends in Microbiology. Oct 1 2019.</span></a></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6045977/"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> Sberro H. et al. Large-Scale Analyses of Human Microbiomes Reveal Thousands of Small, Novel Genes. Cell August 22 2019.</span></a></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6045977/"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> Andermann T. et al. The Microbiome and hematopoietic Cell Transplantation: Past, Present, and Future. Biol Blood Marrow Transplant. July 1 2019.</span></a></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Bloomberg:</span> <a href= "https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-05/superbugs-deadlier-than-cancer-put-chemotherapy-into-question"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Superbugs Deadlier Than Cancer Put Chemotherapy into Question</span></a></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><a href= "http://usprobioticguide.com/?utm_source=intro_pg&utm_medium=civ&utm_campaign=USA_CHART"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Clinical Guide to Probiotic Products Available in USA</span></a></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">HOM Tidbit:</span> <a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19867421?dopt=Abstract"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> Rous P. A Sarcoma of the Fowl Transmissible by an Agent Separable from the Tumor Cells. Journal of Experimental Medicine. April 1 1911.</span></a></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">ASM Article:</span> <a href="http://bit.ly/2MID6wD"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">A Brief History of Cancer Virology</span></a></li> </ul>
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118: Lyme Disease and Other Tick-Borne Infections with Jorge Benach
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Identified in the 1980s,</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Borrelia</span></em> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">burgdorferi</span></em> <span style="font-weight: 400;">and other Lyme disease-associated spirochetes have since been found throughout the world. Jorge Benach answers questions about Lyme Disease symptoms, his role in identifying the causative bacterium, and his current research on multispecies pathogens carried by hard-bodied ticks.</span></p> <h2><strong>Julie’s Biggest Takeaways</strong></h2> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Erythema migrans (the classic bullseye rash) is the most common manifestation that drives people to go see the doctor to be diagnosed with Lyme disease, but only about 40% of people diagnosed with Lyme disease experience erythema migrans.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Lyme disease can progress to serious secondary manifestations. Why some patients experience these additional disease manifestations, but others do not, is one of the heaviest areas of study in Lyme disease.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Though</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Borrelia</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">doesn’t have virulence factors that mediate tissue damage, it does avoid the immune system via antigenic variation. When the bacterium is first introduced into a new human host, that person’s immune system generates reactions to the outer membrane components. These bacterial components change over time, leaving the immune response lagging behind and unable to clear the infection.</span></p> <p><em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Ixodes</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">ticks are the vector for Lyme disease and there are 3 stages in the</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Ixodes</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">tick life:</span></p> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Larvae</strong><span style= "font-weight: 400;">: the stage during which the tick is most likely to become infected by feeding on a rodent.</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Nymph</strong><span style= "font-weight: 400;">: the stage most likely to infect a person (due to their small size, they are less likely to draw attention while feeding).</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Adult</strong><span style= "font-weight: 400;">: the stage when the tick develops into a sexual adult; females are most likely to be infected but because female ticks are large, most people will detect and pull out a feeding adult. Ticks feed for 2-4 days; removing a tick in the first 48 hours of attachment decreases the chance for transmission to the patient.</span></li> </ul> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Long Island is seeing anecdotal increases of</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Amblioma</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">ticks (the Lone Star tick), which can transmit the human pathogen</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Ehrlichia</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. These anecdotal increases were one of the motivations behind a recently published survey of ticks and the human pathogens they carry.</span></p> <h2><strong>Links for This Episode</strong></h2> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><a href= "https://asm.org/mtmpoll/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">MTM Listener Survey</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, it only takes 3 minutes. Thanks!</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><a href= "https://renaissance.stonybrookmedicine.edu/mi/program/faculty/benach"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Jorge Benach website </span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">at Renaissance School of Medicine Stony Brook University</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><a href= "https://mbio.asm.org/content/10/5/e02055-19"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Sanchez-Vicente S. et al. Polymicrobial Nature of Tick-Borne Diseases</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">. mBio. September 10 2019.</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4898797/"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> Monzón J.D. et al. Populaiton and Evolutionary Genomics of Amblyomma americanum, and Expanding Arthropod Disease Vector. </span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">Genome Biol Evol. May 2016.</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">ASM Article:</span> <a href="http://bit.ly/2VxE6Xk"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">The Bulls-Eye Rash of Lyme Disease:</span></a> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Investigating the Cutaneous Host-Pathogen Dynamics of Erythema Migrans</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><a href= "https://www.nhpr.org/post/patient-zero-new-podcast-explores-origins-evolution-lyme-disease#stream/0"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Patient Zero podcast</span></a></li> </ul> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">HOM Tidbit: <a href= "https://mbio.asm.org/content/10/5/e02166-19">Barbour A.G. and Benach J.L. Discovery of the Lyme Disease Agent.</a> mBio. September 17 2019.</span></p> <p> </p>
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117: Influenza Virus Evolution with Jesse Bloom
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Influenza is famous for its ability to mutate and evolve but are mutations always the virus’ friend? Jesse Bloom discusses his work on influenza escape from serum through mutation and how mutations affect influenza virus function and transmission.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Subscribe (free) on</span> <a href= "https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/meet-the-scientist/id289419806?mt=2&ls=1"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Apple Podcasts</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">,</span> <a href="https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cDovL21lZXR0aGVzY2llbnRpc3QubWljcm9iZXdvcmxkLmxpYnN5bnByby5jb20vcnNz"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Google Podcasts</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">,</span> <a href="http://www.subscribeonandroid.com/meetthescientist.microbeworld.libsynpro.com/rss"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Android</span></a><span style= "font-weight: 400;">,</span> <a href= "http://meetthescientist.microbeworld.libsynpro.com/rss"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> RSS</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, or by</span> <a href="http://eepurl.com/c4MKHb"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">email</span></a><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. Also available on the</span> <a href= "http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id337731458?mt=8"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">ASM Podcast Network app</span></a><span style= "font-weight: 400;">.</span></p> <h2><strong>Julie’s Biggest Takeaways</strong></h2> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Influenza is famous for its ability to mutate and evolve through two major mechanisms:</span></p> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Antigenic drift</strong> <span style="font-weight: 400;">occurs when a few mutations accumulate in the influenza genome and lead to seasonal changes.</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Antigenic shift</strong> <span style="font-weight: 400;">occurs when two influenza strains recombine their genomes to form one previously unknown in human populations.</span></li> </ul> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Avian influenza has caused thousands of zoonotic cases, in which the virus is transmitted from birds to people. This causes serious disease but the virus doesn’t easily pass from person-to-person, limiting how many people are affected. When a zoonotic case becomes easily transmissible between people, as is suspected occurred in the 1918 influenza pandemic, the outcome can be very serious for many, many people.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">During antigenic drift, the virus accumulates mutations randomly throughout its genome. Mutations in the hemagglutinin (HA) glycoprotein gene are the mutations most likely to affect the ability of antibodies to attach and block HA during viral infection of a new host cell. The circulating human H3N2 influenza A virus accumulates approximately 3-4 mutations annually within its HA gene, representing a 0.5-1% change. On average, it takes 5-7 years of these mutations accumulating until a viral strain can reinfect a previously infected person.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The changes in the influenza sequence are responsible for waning immunity against the annually circulating strain. This was demonstrated when a flu strain from the 1950s was inadvertently reintroduced in the 1970s; older people who had previously been infected were protected against this exact same strain.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Influenza viruses can escape from sera, which contains many different antibodies, similar to how they can escape from a single monoclonal antibody: through mutations in major antibody binding sites. However, the mutations that allow escape from one person’s serum are different from the mutations that allow escape from another person’s serum. This means the strains that escape one person’s immune system may only be able to infect those with similar immunity.</span></p> <p> </p> <h2><strong>Links for This Episode</strong></h2> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><a href= "https://asm.org/mtmpoll/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">MTM Listener Survey</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, only takes 3 minutes. Thanks!</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><a href= "https://research.fhcrc.org/bloom/en.html"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Jesse Bloom’s lab website</span></a></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><a href= "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Germs,_and_Steel"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Guns Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond</span></a></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Lee J.M. et al.</span> <a href= "https://elifesciences.org/articles/49324"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Mapping Person-to-Person Variation in Viral Mutations that Escape Polyclonal Serum Targeting Influenza Hemagglutinin.</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">eLife. August 2019.</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Xue K.S. et al.</span> <a href= "https://msphere.asm.org/content/3/1/e00552-17"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Cooperating H3N2 Influenza Virus Variants are not Detectable in Primary Clinical Samples.</span></a><span style= "font-weight: 400;">mSphere. January 2018.</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><a href= "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-VlegtO7K8&t=5s"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Francis Arnold at ASM Microbe:</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">Innovation by Evolution: Bringing New Chemistry to Life</span></li> </ul> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Let us know what you thought about this episode by tweeting at us <a href= "http://twitter.com/ASMicrobiology">@ASMicrobiology</a> or leaving a comment on <a href= "http://facebook.com/asmfan">facebook.com/asmfan</a>.</span></p>
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116: Citrus Greening and the Microbiome in Diabetes with Graciela Lorca
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Graciela Lorca studies genetic systems to find positive and negative microbial interactions that lead to disease. She talks about her discovery of chemical inhibitors for the citrus greening disease bacterium,</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Liberibacter asiaticus,</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">and how a specific strain of</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Lactobacillus johnsonii</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">modulates the immune system and may help prevent development of diabetes in people.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Subscribe (free) on</span> <a href= "https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/meet-the-scientist/id289419806?mt=2&ls=1"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Apple Podcasts</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">,</span> <a href="https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cDovL21lZXR0aGVzY2llbnRpc3QubWljcm9iZXdvcmxkLmxpYnN5bnByby5jb20vcnNz"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Google Podcasts</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">,</span> <a href="http://www.subscribeonandroid.com/meetthescientist.microbeworld.libsynpro.com/rss"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Android</span></a><span style= "font-weight: 400;">,</span> <a href= "http://meetthescientist.microbeworld.libsynpro.com/rss"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> RSS</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, or by</span> <a href="http://eepurl.com/c4MKHb"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">email</span></a><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. Also available on the</span> <a href= "http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id337731458?mt=8"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">ASM Podcast Network app</span></a><span style= "font-weight: 400;">.</span></p> <h2><strong>Julie’s Biggest Takeaways</strong></h2> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Citrus greening disease, or huanglongbing, is a disease of citrus trees causing a major epidemic among citrus farmers around the world. The disease causes trees to sicken and eventually die, and is best diagnosed by PCR amplification of the bacterial DNA from the bacterium that causes the disease,</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Liberibacter asiaticus</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. Because the disease spreads through the tree at different rates, it’s important that many samples be tested for accurate diagnosis.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Quarantining the disease has proved difficult, as undiagnosed roots can transmit the disease if they are used to hybridize with canopy plants. The disease becomes even harder to contain under bad weather conditions: the high winds of recent hurricanes can scatter the insect vector, the Asian citrus psyllid, leading to infection of new orchards.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Although</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">L. asiaticus</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">can’t be cultured, Graciela performed a screen on</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">L. asiaticus</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">transcription factors that were produced by</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">E. coli</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. These were tested for inhibition by a chemical library, and discovered that a common treatment for gout, benzbromarone, inhibited protein activity. This discovery was confirmed using</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">in vivo</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">infected plants and by expressing the gene in related bacterial species, Graciela and her team predict the protein plays a role in responding to osmotic stress. The protein target of the chemical differs widely between citrus greening disease and gout, but the protein-chemical interaction is similar enough to allow protein inhibition.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Is there a link between the microbiome and diabetes? 10 years ago,</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Lactobacillus johnsonii</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">can rescue animals that are predisposed to diabetes.</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">L. johnsonii</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">inactivates a host enzyme, IDO, which regulates proinflammatory responses. Activated immune cells can travel to the pancreas and attack beta cells, leading to diabetes. Regulating the proinflammatory response by administering</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">L. johnsonii</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">as probiotics offers the opportunity to control development of diabetes in predisposed people.</span></p> <p> </p> <h2><strong>Links for This Episode</strong></h2> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><a href= "https://asm.org/mtmpoll/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">MTM Listener Survey</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, only takes 3 minutes. Thanks!</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><a href= "http://microcell.ufl.edu/people/faculty-directory/lorca/"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> Graciela Lorca’s lab website</span></a></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><a href= "https://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article?id=10.1371/journal.ppat.1004101"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Pagliai F.A. et al. The Transcriptional Activator LdtR from ‘Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus’ Mediates Osmotic Stress Tolerance. PLoS Pathogens. April 2014.</span></a></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19502437"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Lai K.K., Lorca G.L. and Gonzalez C.F. Biochemical Properties of Two Cinnamoyl Esterases Purified from a Lactobacillus johnsonii Strain Isolated from Stool Samples of Diabetes-Resistant Rats. Applied and Environmental Microbiology. August 2009.</span></a></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28659913"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Marcial G.E. et al. Lactobacillus johnsonii N6.2 Modulates the Host Immune Response: A Double-Blind, Randomized Trial in Healthy Adults. Frontiers in Immunology. June 2017.</span></a></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><a href= "https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11104-007-9514-z"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> HOM Tidbit: Hartmann A., Rothballer M., and Schmid M. Lorenz Hiltner, a Pioneer in Rhisophere Microbial Ecology and Soil Bacteriology Research. Plant and Soil November 2008.</span></a></li> </ul> <p> </p> <p> </p>
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115: 20 Years of the Lab Response Network with Julie Villanueva
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">When a new biothreat or emerging infectious agent threatens, how are diagnostic protocols put into place? It’s up to the Laboratory Response Network (LRN), a multipartner network of public health, clinical and other labs, to generate and distribute reagents, and provide training to detect these threats. Julie Villanueva, Chief of the Laboratory Preparedness and Response Branch at the CDC, talks about the LRN and how no two weeks on the job are alike.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Subscribe (free) on</span> <a href= "https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/meet-the-scientist/id289419806?mt=2&ls=1"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Apple Podcasts</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">,</span> <a href="https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cDovL21lZXR0aGVzY2llbnRpc3QubWljcm9iZXdvcmxkLmxpYnN5bnByby5jb20vcnNz"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Google Podcasts</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">,</span> <a href="http://www.subscribeonandroid.com/meetthescientist.microbeworld.libsynpro.com/rss"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Android</span></a><span style= "font-weight: 400;">,</span> <a href= "http://meetthescientist.microbeworld.libsynpro.com/rss"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> RSS</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, or by</span> <a href="http://eepurl.com/c4MKHb"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">email</span></a><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. Also available on the</span> <a href= "http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id337731458?mt=8"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">ASM Podcast Network app</span></a><span style= "font-weight: 400;">.</span></p> <h2><strong>Julie’s Biggest Takeaways</strong></h2> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In the mid-1990s, the CDC joined public health representatives along with the Departments of Defense and Justice to determine the best way to prepare and respond to potential bioterrorism threats. The result was the Laboratory Response Network (LRN), founded in 1999.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The LRN provides infrastructure to detect potential pathogens. Though first put into place to detect and prevent bioterror events, the LRN has also been able to detect infectious diseases that have emerged through other means.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">When a new disease emerges, there are typically no widely available tests to diagnose the disease. The CDC works hard to quickly develop diagnostic tests, validate the tests, manufacture the necessary reagents, and ship these out to the reference labs that are part of the LRN. This ensures that each lab can accurately reach the same result with the same sample.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The laboratory response network requires more than just developing and deploying diagnostic tests. The LRN must also provide</span></p> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Training for LRN scientists.</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Proficiency testing to test the network.</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Reporting protocols for sending results.</span></li> </ul> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">What diseases keep Julie up at night? A viral hemorrhagic fever is one, and microorganisms that evolve quickly and have high pathogenic potential, like influenza virus, is another.</span></p> <h2><strong>Featured Quotes</strong></h2> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“Our collaborations across other federal agencies like the FDA and the USDA are really important for us to stay on the cutting edge of what could be emerging.”</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“Partnerships are so critical when managing an outbreak. There’s never an outbreak that only affects one group of people...there are lots of different facets of an outbreak that need to be addressed and partnerships are critical for managing and trying to mitigate as much as possible.”</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“The LRN primarily focuses on diagnostics, this is what the network really does. It’s made to be able to detect biothreats and emerging infectious diseases in both clinical and environmental samples.”</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“We’re always looking at new technologies for faster, more sensitive, and more specific tests.”</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“Every outbreak has been different in a different way, and I’ve learned something every time. I think that each outbreak has taught us a few things that work well within the network and a few things with which we can improve, and continued improvement is very important to us. For example, the Ebola outbreak in 2014-16 really highlighted the need for biosafety and biosecurity procedures all across not only the network but also our hospitals...we learn something different from every outbreak.”</span></p> <h2><strong>Links for This Episode</strong></h2> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><a href= "https://asm.org/mtmpoll/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">MTM Listener Survey</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, only takes 3 minutes. Thanks!</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><a href= "https://emergency.cdc.gov/lrn/"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">The Laboratory Response Network</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">(CDC website)</span></li> </ul> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">HOM:</span> <a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4808352/"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> The Origin of In Situ Hybridization</span></a><span style= "font-weight: 400;">- a Personal History</span></p>
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114: Global Public Health with George F. Gao
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">George F. Gao discusses how China CDC promotes global public health during outbreaks SARS and Ebola. He also talks about running a structural biology lab, the importance of both basic and translational research, and the most important discovery of the 20th century.</span></p> <p><strong>Julie’s Biggest Takeaways</strong><span style= "font-weight: 400;">:</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">China CDC was founded in 2001. Its experience with the SARS outbreak informed its response to the western Africa Ebola outbreak in 2014-2016, having learned that viruses don’t care about national borders and can quickly become an international problem. Responding to any major outbreak serves both altruistic and selfish motives, since quelling the outbreak decreases the chance that the disease will continue to circulate, potentially reaching your country.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Basic research is fundamental for many translational applications to improve human health. By measuring the mutation rate, for example, of a circulating virus, scientists can determine if previous isolates can be used to generate vaccines. The basic research that led to new nucleic acid sequencing techniques has many important applications!</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">When asking other scientists what the most important discovery of the 20th century is, many biomedical scientists name the discovery of the double helix. George points out that bird migration patterns have influenced our understanding of avian diseases like the flu. This discovery led scientists to understand more about the annual transmission patterns of flu, highlighting the importance of interdisciplinary research.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">George has a foot in both basic and translational sciences and is an ardent supporter of both. The difficulty is in identifying basic research that has potential for application and providing opportunities to basic researchers to create companies and products based on their research. Another hurdles is collaborating and coordinating to ensure people talk to each other </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">George lists the 4 Cs required to promote science, public health and societal development:</span></p> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Collaboration </span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Cooperation</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Communication</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Competition</span></li> </ul> <p><strong>Links for this Episode</strong><span style= "font-weight: 400;">:</span></p> <ul> <li><a href="http://www.caspmi.cn/gaog/"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">George F. Gao Lab Website</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br /></span></li> <li><a href= "https://science.sciencemag.org/content/346/6209/666.full"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> Gao GF and Feng Y. On the Ground in Sierra Leone.</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Science</span></em> <span style="font-weight: 400;">2014. </span></a><span style= "font-weight: 400;"><br /></span></li> <li><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29472471"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Carroll D</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">et al</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. The Global Virome Project.</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Science</span></em> <span style="font-weight: 400;">2018.</span></a><span style= "font-weight: 400;"><br /></span></li> <li><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30064643"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Watts G. George F. Gao: Head of China CDC Signals a More Global Outlook.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Lancet</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">2018.</span></a><span style= "font-weight: 400;"><br /></span></li> <li><a href="http://bit.ly/2YxObrY"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Forging the Path for Polio Vaccination: Isabel Morgan and Dorothy Horstmann</span></a></li> </ul> <p> </p>
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113: Bacteriophage Interactions in the Gut with Jeremy Barr
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Bacteriophage are viruses that infect specific bacteria. Jeremy Barr discusses his discovery that phage interact with (but don’t infect) mammalian epithelial cells. He explains how these different organisms: bacteria, bacteriophage, and the mammalian host, may exist in three-way symbioses.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Subscribe (free) on</span> <a href= "https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/meet-the-scientist/id289419806?mt=2&ls=1"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Apple Podcasts</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">,</span> <a href="https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cDovL21lZXR0aGVzY2llbnRpc3QubWljcm9iZXdvcmxkLmxpYnN5bnByby5jb20vcnNz"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Google Podcasts</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">,</span> <a href="http://www.subscribeonandroid.com/meetthescientist.microbeworld.libsynpro.com/rss"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Android</span></a><span style= "font-weight: 400;">,</span> <a href= "http://meetthescientist.microbeworld.libsynpro.com/rss"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> RSS</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, or by</span> <a href="http://eepurl.com/c4MKHb"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">email</span></a><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. Also available on the</span> <a href= "http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id337731458?mt=8"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">ASM Podcast Network app</span></a><span style= "font-weight: 400;">.</span></p> <h2><strong>Julie’s Biggest Takeaways</strong></h2> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Jeremy’s work as a postdoc focused on developing a protocol to clean phages for use in tissue culture. He and his advisor, Forest Rohwer, were asked to use this protocol to clean phages for a patient extremely sick with a multidrug-resistant</span> <span style= "font-weight: 400;"><span dir="ltr"><em>Acinetobacter baumannii</em></span> isolate. Within 24 hours, they used an experimental lab method to clean and purify phages that were used in an experimental procedure to treat a very sick person; phage therapy ultimately saved his life.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Jeremy discovered that phages can pass through human epithelial cells by using a transwell system. Phage interaction with epithelial cells is not the same as an infection, since the phages cannot use mammalian molecular machinery to reproduce. Jeremy hypothesizes that the epithelial cells take up phage during active sampling from the gut, during which epithelial cells sample the environment to inform the immune system.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Jeremy’s work is building toward a model of tripartite symbioses. This includes symbiosis between bacteria and mammalian cells, between bacteria and bacteriophage, and between bacteriophage and mammalian cells. Bacteria can interact with mammalian cells to influence host cell signaling to their benefit, and Jeremy’s hypothesis is that phage will be found to do the same. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Building a gut-on-a-chip allowed Jeremy to study the interactions of phage with the gut in a controlled environment. The preliminary results suggest that the phage adapt to better adhere to the mucosal surfaces over time. Discovering the protein domains that phage use to stick to mucins opens up the possibility of using these domains in personalized therapeutics, by designing these into new phage or other therapeutics. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Jeremy’s 2 major pieces of advice for early career scientists:</span></p> <ol> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Follow what excites you! Find an aspect of biology that you're really passionate about and follow that. </span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Find amazing mentors. Contact even people you don’t directly work with, reach out to them and build your network.</span></li> </ol> <h2><strong>Links for This Episode</strong></h2> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><a href= "https://asm.org/mtmpoll/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">MTM Listener Survey</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, only takes 3 minutes. Thanks!</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><a href= "https://thebarrlab.org/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Jeremy Barr lab website</span></a></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><a href= "https://theperfectpredator.com/"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">The Perfect Predator by Steffanie Strathdee</span></a></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30651225"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Gordillo Altamirano FL and Barr JJ. Phage Therapy in the Postantibiotic Era. Clin Microbiol Rev 2019. </span></a></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29162715"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Nguyen S. et al. Bacteriophage Transcytosis Provides a Mechanism to Cross Epithelial Cell Layers. mBio 2017. </span></a></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><a href= "https://www.asm.org/Events/ASM-Microbe/Home"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Microbe information</span></a></li> </ul>
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112: A Career in Salmonella with Stanley Maloy
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Stanley Maloy discusses his career in</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Salmonella</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">research, which started with developing molecular tools and is now focused on the role of</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Salmonella</span></em> <span style="font-weight: 400;">genome plasticity in niche development. He further talks about his role in science entrepreneurship, science education, and working with an international research community.</span></p> <p><strong>Julie’s Biggest Takeaways</strong><span style= "font-weight: 400;">:</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Stanley’s career began when transposon mutagenesis was a new, cutting-edge technique, and he found the best way to learn how to apply a new method was to jump in and try it.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Antibiotic resistance has been a problem throughout Stanley’s career. The future may hold new antimicrobials that aren’t necessarily categorized as classical ‘antibiotics,’ but may offer precision therapy against specific infectious agents. Whatever the future holds, it won’t be a single answer: Stanley sees many innovations necessary to deal with the future of antibiotic-resistant infections.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Stanley’s current research is in</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Salmonella</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">genome plasticity and how genomic traits influence the bacterial niche. Where do traits like exotoxins or antibiotic resistance exist in the environment, and how are they transferred to new species to influence disease? Cases of Typhoid Fever in people without known exposure to another diseased person suggest there may be an environmental reservoir. What might it be?</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Stanley is a big proponent of scientist entrepreneurs and participates with the NSF Innovation Corps to promote early science start ups. In addition to creativity and the scientific process, one characteristic he encourages all entrepreneurs to develop is a good team spirit. Working collaboratively as a team is a very strong sign of success.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Stanley believes in the importance of an international science communities, and he practices what he preaches: he works closely with the scientific community of Chile. He began in 1990 by teaching an intensive lab course about techniques, and has developed a decades-long relationship with this community. These relationships allow a dialog, and were the reason Stanley ultimately turned his focus to</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Salmonella</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">Typhi from</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Salmonella</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">Typhimurium.</span></p> <p><strong>Links for this Episode</strong><span style= "font-weight: 400;">:</span></p> <ul> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;"><a href= "https://asm.org/mtmpoll/">MTM Listener Survey</a>, only takes 3 minutes! Thanks;)</span></li> <li><a href="http://www.sci.sdsu.edu/~smaloy/"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Stanley Maloy website at San Diego State University</span></a></li> <li><a href= "http://www.microbe.tv/twim/95-a-microbe-lover-in-san-diego/"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> This Week in Microbiology #95: A Microbe Lover in San Diego</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/i-corps/"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">National Science Foundation Innovation Corps</span></a></li> <li><a href= "http://www.asmscience.org/about/jmbe-announce-inclusive-science"><em> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Journal of Microbiology and Biology Education</span></em> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Call for Submissions for a Special Issue on diversity and inclusion.</span></a></li> <li><a href="http://bit.ly/2SquvjE"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">HOM Tidbit: A Large Community Outbreak of Salmonellosis Caused by Intentional Contamination of Restaurant Salad Bars</span></a></li> </ul> <p> </p>
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111: The Cheese Microbiome with Rachel Dutton
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Cheese rinds contain microbial communities that are relatively simple to study in the lab while offering insight into other, more complex microbial ecosystems. Rachel Dutton discusses her work studying these cheese microbiomes, one of the few microbial ecosystem types where almost all of the microorganisms are culturable.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Subscribe (free) on</span> <a href= "https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/meet-the-scientist/id289419806?mt=2&ls=1"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Apple Podcasts</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">,</span> <a href="https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cDovL21lZXR0aGVzY2llbnRpc3QubWljcm9iZXdvcmxkLmxpYnN5bnByby5jb20vcnNz"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Google Podcasts</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">,</span> <a href="http://www.subscribeonandroid.com/meetthescientist.microbeworld.libsynpro.com/rss"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Android</span></a><span style= "font-weight: 400;">,</span> <a href= "http://meetthescientist.microbeworld.libsynpro.com/rss"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> RSS</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, or by</span> <a href="http://eepurl.com/c4MKHb"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">email</span></a><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. Also available on the</span> <a href= "http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id337731458?mt=8"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">ASM Podcast Network app</span></a><span style= "font-weight: 400;">.</span></p> <h2><strong>Julie’s Biggest Takeaways</strong></h2> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The cheese microbiome makes a great study system because</span></p> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The communities are relatively simple (as few as 3 different microbial species)</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The microbial members are almost all culturable (in stark contrast to most microbial communities)</span></li> </ul> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The microbes colonize the cheese rind as a biofilm, which consists of the microbes and their secreted extracellular products. Like all biofilm communities, architecture and spatial structure are important for microbial interactions on cheese rinds, as are oxygen gradations, food access, and proximity to microbial neighbors.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Rachel and her lab performed DNA sequencing on over 150 cheese samples from 10 countries to identify the microbes present on these rinds. By comparing these sequences to those they could grow in the lab (Rachel’s lab makes “in vitro” cheese medium consisting of desiccated, autoclaved cheese), they realized almost all of the organisms identified by molecular means were present in their cultures.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Does the cheese environment influence the microbial communities or do the microbial communities influence the cheese environment? Both! The pH, temperature, added salt and temperature act as knobs or dials that allow cheese makers to fine tune the final cheese product.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Rachel was inspired to work on cheese after taking the Microbial Ecology course at Woods Hole, where the students spent a lot of time looking at the beautiful but complex interactions within microbial mats. Upon cutting open some Tomme de Savoie from a French colleague, she noted similarities between the microbial mat and the layered cheese rind</span></p> <h2><strong>Featured Quotes</strong></h2> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“The biofilm that colonizes the surface of the cheese has a lot to do with how the cheese ends up looking and smelling and tasting, and we actually eat this biofilm when we eat the cheese.”</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“We’re able to see that of all of the things that we identified by reasonable sequence abundance, we could also find them in culture. This told us that we were able to get a lot of these microbes in culture, which is not really possible in microbial ecosystems, but is one of the really strong advantages of working in the fermented food community.”</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“We’re looking at these interactions because they’re happening on cheese and we can study them in the lab but they are things that are happening broadly across ecosystems, which I think is very exciting.”</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“We’ve done some work on the succession of species over time. You have these very very reproducible successions over time, even though a lot of these cheeses are not inoculated with specific species; these are species that are coming in from the environment but they’re very reproducible communities. There are some beautiful dynamics that happen and we’re starting to look at the interactions between species that may be driving some of these dynamics.”</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“We have this big need for model systems. One of the things I hope is that we’ll have more people developing simple model systems for microbial ecology so we can compare results and see what the general principles are.”</span></p> <h2><strong>Links for This Episode</strong></h2> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><a href= "https://asm.org/mtmpoll/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">MTM Listener Survey</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, only takes 3 minutes! Thanks;)</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><a href= "http://www.theduttonlab.com/"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Rachel Dutton Lab Website</span></a></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25036636"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Wolfe BE, Sutton JE, Santarelli M, and Dutton RJ. Cheese Rind Communities Provide Tractable Systems for in situ and in vitro Studies of Microbial Diversity. Cell 2014.</span></a></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><a href= "http://www.asmscience.org/docserver/fulltext/microbiolspec/1/1/CM-0012-12.pdf?expires=1562031744&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=4BBCDA3AE5F3D3B17734D6678D323A89"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Wolfe BE and Dutton RJ. Towards an ecosystems approach to cheese microbiology. Book chapter: Cheese and Microbes. ASM Press and Microbiology Spectrum (2014).</span></a></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><a href= "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2Aq0Mv-uIQ&feature=youtu.be"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> Microbes After Hours: The Microbiology of Cheese (YouTube)</span></a></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><a href= "https://www.the-scientist.com/notebook/competition-and-cooperation-of-cheese-rind-microbes-exposed-65235"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Competition and Cooperation of Cheese Rind Microbes Exposed (The Scientist)</span></a></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Related:</span> <a href= "https://www.asm.org/Articles/2016/December/The-Natural-History-of-Cheese-Mites"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">The Natural History of Cheese Mites</span></a></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">HOM Tidbit:</span> <a href= "https://peoriahistorian.blogspot.com/2013/04/we-called-her-moldy-mary.html"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Peoria Historian Blog Post</span></a></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">HOM Tidbit:</span> <a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4772602/"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> Journal of Bacteriology Classic Spotlight: Crowd Sourcing Provided</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Penicillium</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Strains for the War Effort</span></a></li> </ul>
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110: Metagenomic Sequencing for Infectious Diseases Diagnostics with Charles Chiu
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Most diagnostic tests look for a single microorganism, or at most a limited panel of microorganisms. Charles Chiu discusses his research on metagenomic sequencing as a diagnostic tool that can identify all potential pathogens in a given patient sample.</span></p> <p><strong>Links for this Episode:</strong></p> <ul> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;"><a href= "https://asm.org/mtmpoll/">MTM Listener Survey</a>, only takes 3 minutes! Thanks;)</span></li> <li><a href="https://profiles.ucsf.edu/charles.chiu"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Charles Chiu Profile at UCSF</span></a></li> <li><a href="https://chiulab.ucsf.edu/"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Chiu Lab at UCSF</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://www.archivesofpathology.org/doi/pdf/10.5858/arpa.2016-0539-RA"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Validation of Metagenomic Next-Generation Sequencing Tests for Universal Pathogen Detection</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://www.nature.com/articles/nm.4380?WT.feed_name=subjects_microbiology"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">The Eukaryotic Gut Virome in Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation: New Clues in Enteric Graft-Versus-Host Disease</span></a></li> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;">HOM Tidbit:</span> <a href= "http://jem.rupress.org/content/jem/26/4/477.full.pdf"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Dochez and Avery. The Elaboration of Specific Soluble Substance by Pneumococcus during Growth.</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Journal of Experimental Medicine</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">1917.</span></a></li> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;">HOM Tidbit:</span> <a href= "https://jcm.asm.org/content/55/8/2313"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Kozel and Burnham-Marusich. Point-of-Care Testing for Infectious Diseases: Past, Present, and Future.</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Journal of Clinical Microbiology</span></em> <span style="font-weight: 400;">2017. </span></a></li> </ul> <p> </p>
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109: Antimicrobial-Eating Microorganisms and the Resistome with Gautam Dantas
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">While searching for lignin-degrading soil microbes, Gautam Dantas discovered growth in an antimicrobial compound-containing control! He has since studied the resistance determinants (resistome) of soil and clinical samples to determine their similarities.</span><br /> <br /></p> <p><strong>Julie’s Biggest Takeaways</strong><span style= "font-weight: 400;">:</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Sequencing information is extremely useful for descriptive studies, but there’s an increasing trend in microbiome studies to use the sequencing data as a basis for forming hypotheses. These hypotheses can then be tested by some variation of classical techniques, be in biochemical, culturing, animal models, etc. Surveying who is there helps scientists make testable predictions.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Gautam’s resistome research is built on the research of many, but especially inspired by:</span></p> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Gerry Wright, who proposed the presence of a resistome. The resistome is a collection of genetic determinants in a microbial group that allows phenotypic resistance against antimicrobial compounds.</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Julian Davies, who proposed the producer hypothesis. The producer hypothesis suggests that the same microorganisms that produce antimicrobials must also be the source of resistance, because they need to be able to protect themselves against the action of their own compounds.</span></li> </ul> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Gautam’s discovery of antibiotic-eating microbes was completely serendipitous! As a postdoc, he was looking for lignin-degrading soil microbes and set up a culture with antibiotics as a negative control. To his surprise, there were some soil microbes that were able to grow - using the drugs as food! Samples from 3 different states were all able to support microbial life.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The resistome of soil is very similar to the resistome of clinical samples, but the study design doesn’t allow Gautam to conclude directionality: do the genes move from the clinic to the environment or from the environment to the clinic? This requires studying the resistomes over time, rather than the snapshot analyses this study generated. However, Gautam’s group has received funding to do longitudinal studies, which will help scientists understand how resistance originates and then moves to new microbial communities.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Context is very important for determining disease. A microbe may make one person but not another sick. Context can also be the genes carried by the microbe, and</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">E. coli</span></em> <span style="font-weight: 400;">is a great example of this. Some</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">E. coli</span></em> <span style="font-weight: 400;">are very good at causing UTIs but cause no disease when carried in the gut.</span></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Links for this Episode</strong><span style= "font-weight: 400;">:</span></p> <ul> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;"><a href= "https://asm.org/mtmpoll">Take the MTM listener survey</a> (~3 min.)</span></li> <li><a href="http://www.dantaslab.org/"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Gautam Dantas lab website</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22827799"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Wright G.D. The Antibiotic Resistome.</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Expert Opinion in Drug Discovery</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">. 2010.</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20805405/"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Davies J. and Davies D. Origins and Evolution of Antibiotic Resistance.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">MMBR</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. 2010.</span></a></li> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;">Bloomberg:</span> <a href= "https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-04-22/even-clorox-and-unilever-want-the-booming-bacteria-business-to-thrive"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Germ-Killing Brands Now Want to Sell You Germs</span></a></li> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;">HOM Tidbit: <a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3859987/">Recycling Metchnikoff: Probiotics, the Intestinal Microbiome and the Quest for Long Life</a></span></li> </ul> <p> </p>
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108: Microbes, Heme, and Impossible Burgers with Pat Brown
<p>Pat Brown founded Impossible Foods with a mission to replace animals as a food production technology. Here, he discusses the ways microbial engineering helps produce the plant hemoglobin that provides the Impossible Burger’s meaty qualities.</p> <p>Links for this episode:</p> <ul> <li><a href="https://asm.org/mtmpoll"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Take the MTM listener survey</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">(~3 min.)</span></li> <li><a href= "https://asm.org/Articles/2019/May/The-Microbial-Reasons-Why-the-Impossible-Burger-Ta"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">The Microbial Reasons Why the Impossible Tastes So Good</span></a></li> <li><a href="https://impossiblefoods.com/"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Impossible Foods</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://theconversation.com/what-makes-the-impossible-burger-look-and-taste-like-real-beef-115027"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">The Conversation: What Makes the Impossible Burger Look and Taste Like Real Beef?</span></a></li> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wired:</span><a href= "https://www.wired.com/story/the-impossible-burger/"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">The Impossible Burger: Inside the Strange Science of the Fake Meat that ‘Bleeds’</span></a></li> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;">HOM Tidbit:</span> <a href= "http://www.esp.org/foundations/genetics/classical/holdings/m/gm-let.pdf"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Mendel’s letters to von Nägeli</span></a></li> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;">HOM Tidbit:</span><a href= "https://www.the-scientist.com/foundations-old/the-mendel-n228geli-letters-circa-1866-73-44934"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Mendel-Nägeli Letters, circa 1866-73 (Scientific American)</span></a></li> </ul> <div> </div>
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107: CRISPR, anti-CRISPR, and anti-anti-CRISPR systems with Joe Bondy-Denomy
<p>CRISPR is a genome-editing tool, but what is its role in microbial biology and evolution? Joe Bondy-Denomy discusses his discovery of the first anti-CRISPR protein and the many unanswered questions surrounding CRISPR biology.</p> <p><strong>Julie’s Biggest Takeaways</strong></p> <p>CRISPR is a bacterial immune system that identifies and destroys specific nucleotide sequences. These sequences are most commonly associated with foreign DNA from bacteriophage or plasmids.</p> <p>Bacterial acquisition of new CRISPR spacer sequences is fairly inefficient, and often a bacterium dies before acquiring and fending off a new phage infection. Only about 1 in a million cells emerge from a phage infection with a new spacer sequence, likely driven defective phages that act as a vaccine of sorts to provide spacer sequence material.</p> <p>40% of bacteria and 85-90% of archaea have had some sort of CRISPR system detected in their genomic sequences.</p> <p>Most bacteria have Type I CRISPR system. This system includes different proteins that serve unique functions: one holds onto CRISPR RNA, one helps identify complementary sequences, and one cleaves the actual nucleotide sequence. The Type II CRISPR system has a single protein, Cas9, which performs all of these functions by itself. Because of its simplicity, this Type II CRISPR system has become widespread as a DNA manipulation tool.</p> <p>What are the inputs to CRISPR? How do bacterial cells turn CRISPR genes on and off? Do CRISPR systems serve any other regulatory functions? There are still a number of questions that need to be answered to understand the biological role of CRISPR systems.</p> <ul> <li><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><a href= "https://asm.org/mtmpoll"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Take the MTM listener survey</span></a> <span style="font-weight: 400;">(~3 min.)</span></span></li> <li><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><a href= "https://bondydenomylab.ucsf.edu/"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Joe Bondy-Denomy UCSF Lab Website</span></a></span></li> <li><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28041849"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Rauch BJ. Inhibition of CRISPR-Cas9 with Bacteriophage Proteins.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Cell</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">2017.</span></a></span></li> <li><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30033364"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Borges AL. Bacteriophage Cooperation Suppresses CRISPR-Cas3 and Cas9 Immunity.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Cell</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">2018.</span></a></span></li> <li><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><a href= "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2018/07/17/370791.full.pdf"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Mendoza SD. A Nucleus-Like Compartment Shields Bacteriophage DNA from CRISPR-Cas and Restriction Nucleases.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">bioRxiv</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">2018.</span></a></span></li> <li><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><a href= "http://fellows.ucsf.edu/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">UCSF Sandler Fellows Program</span></a></span></li> <li><a href= "http://www.virology.ws/phage_brochure_lowres.pdf"><span style= "font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">HOM Tidbit: Coming of Phage Celebrating the Fiftieth Anniversary of the First Phage Course</span></span></a></li> </ul>
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106: Creepy dreadful wonderful parasites (and a few bacteria) with Bobbi Pritt
<p><strong>Julie’s Biggest Takeaways</strong><span style= "font-weight: 400;">:</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Parasites are incredibly varied in many characteristics, including their size! Some are microscopic, while others are macroscopic and can be seen with the naked eye. Not just small macroscopic, although some worms at 35 cm can be considered quite large. Some tapeworms can reach 50 feet!</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Bobbi Pritt’s blog started as an exercise to share the cases she observed while a student at the London School of Tropical Medicine. She wanted to share these cases with students back at the Mayo Clinic, but found the audience grew to include clinical parasitologists, microbiologists, and parasite-interested people worldwide. Part of its success relies on its succinctness: a short, digestible case study with the minimum information needed to make a diagnosis.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Pritt’s research focuses on developing molecular tests to detect microorganism RNA or DNA. Molecular tests can be used as a complementary diagnostic test or as the primary test, which can give healthcare workers definitive information to make therapeutic decisions much more quickly than a test that requires culturing the microorganism.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">A new bacterium that causes Lyme disease,</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Borellia mayonii</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">, was found because the molecular tests that detect</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Borellia burgdorferi</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">are flexible enough to detect multiple species and can differentiate between the different types of organisms. It was an astute technologist working at the bench who recognized the readout was slightly different than</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">We did a tick drag, taking a white cloth and dragging it through vegetation. The Ixodes ticks that transmit Lyme disease will think the sheet is a host and will grab onto the sheet, allowing easy collection of a large number of ticks to test for bacterial presence.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">One of the outstanding questions in parasitology is the relationship of</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Blastocystis</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">(formerly known as</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Blastocystis hominis</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">but may actually be several species) to human health.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Blastocystis</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">lives in the intestinal tract and may cause irritable bowel-like syndrome. Definitive evidence on whether</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Blastocystis</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">causes intestinal disease has yet to be presented, and there is a lot of opportunity for research in this area.</span></p> <p><strong>Links for this Episode</strong><span style= "font-weight: 400;">:</span></p> <ul> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;"><a href= "https://asm.org/mtmpoll">Take the MTM Listener survey</a> (~3 min.)</span></li> <li><a href="http://parasitewonders.com/"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Creepy Dreadful Wonderful Parasites (Bobbi Pritt’s blog)</span></a></li> <li><a href="https://twitter.com/ParasiteGal"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">ParasiteGal: Bobbi Pritt on Twitter</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26856777"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Pritt B.S.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">et al.</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">Identification of a Novel Pathogenic</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Borrelia</span></em> <span style="font-weight: 400;">species causing Lyme borreliosis with unusually high spirochaetaemia: a descriptive study.</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Lancet Infectious Disease</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">. 2016.</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://asm.org/Podcasts/MTM/Episodes/Biofilms-and-metagenomic-diagnostics-in-clinical-i"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">MTM Episode: Biofilms and Metagenomic Diagnostics in Clinical Infections with Robin Patel</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2509519/?page=1"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> HOM Tidbit: Patrick Manson. On the Guinea Worm.</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">British Medical Journal.</span></em></a></li> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;"><a href= "Links%20for%20this%20Episode:%20Creepy%20Dreadful%20Wonderful%20Parasites%20(Bobbi%20Pritt%E2%80%99s%20blog)%20ParasiteGal:%20Bobbi%20Pritt%20on%20Twitter%20Pritt%20B.S.%20et%20al.%20Identification%20of%20a%20Novel%20Pathogenic%20Borrelia%20species%20causing%20Lyme%20borreliosis%20with%20unusually%20high%20spirochaetaemia:%20a%20descriptive%20study.%20Lancet%20Infectious%20Disease.%202016.%20MTM%20Episode:%20Biofilms%20and%20Metagenomic%20Diagnostics%20in%20Clinical%20Infections%20with%20Robin%20Patel%20HOM%20Tidbit:%20Patrick%20Manson.%20On%20the%20Guinea%20Worm.%20British%20Medical%20Journal."> Bobbi on This Week in Parasitism</a> (TWiP)</span></li> </ul>
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105: HPV vaccination with Doug Lowy
<p>How did discoveries made with bovine papillomavirus help scientists develop the human papillomavirus vaccine? Doug Lowy discusses his journey that began with basic research and led to the production of the HPV vaccine.</p> <h2><strong>Julie’s Biggest Takeaways</strong></h2> <p>In the early 1950s, the U.S. was a high-incidence country for cervical cancer. Through application of screens using the Pap smear, doctors have been able to catch and excise suspicious tissue, leading to a significant drop in incidence. Cervical cancer remains high-incidence in low- and middle-income countries; in high-incidence countries, cervical cancer is the most common form of HPV-associated cancer. In the U.S., cervical cancer represents around 50% of the HPV-associated cancers, with others like penile, anal, and oropharyngeal cancers also represented.<br /> <br /> Henrietta Lacks, the woman from whom HeLa cells were derived, had a cervical adenocarcenoma caused by HPV-16. The viral DNA had integrated near the myc oncogene to generate high expression of this oncogene. The cell lines have been growing for decades but the epigenetic changes from HPV infection have led to a dependence of the cells on E6 and E7; if they are blocked or removed, the HeLa cells undergo apoptosis.<br /> <br /> Lowy’s work on bovine papilloma virus (BPV) played a key role in development of the HPV vaccine. Other researchers attempting to generate a neutralizing response to the HPV capsid failed, but Lowy and his colleague Reinhard Kirnbauer had successfully achieved neutralization using BPV. By comparing HPV and BPV sequences, Lowy realized there was a single amino acid change in the HPV-16 strain that was being used as a lab standard strain; fixing this restored capsid self-assembly, led to immunogenicity and provided the basis for the HPV vaccine.<br /> <br /> HPV L1 capsid protein has a repeating structure that induces a very high level of immune protection. Protection is so high that it is sterilizing, meaning that exposed individuals prevent any infection, not just disease. This may serve as the basis for a new strategy, using repeating structures such as ferretin in vaccine development.<br /> <br /> The incubation between infection and development of cancer can take decades, and the vaccine has not been on the market long enough to assess a difference in cancer incidence. It has resulted in a decrease in cervical dysplasia, the endpoints used in cervical cancer screening via pap smear, but no cancer reduction has been observed yet.</p> <p><strong>Links for this Episode</strong><span style= "font-weight: 400;">:</span></p> <ul> <li><a href= "https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2008/summary/"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> Harold zur Hausen Nobel Prize for association between HPV and cancer</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26727228"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Lowy D. HPV Vaccination to Prevent Cervical Cancer and Other HPV-Associated Disease: From Basic Science to Effective Interventions.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Journal of Clinical Investigation.</span></em> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Jan 2016.</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29325819"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Schiller J. and Lowy D. Explanations for the High Potency of HPV Prophylactic Vaccines.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Vaccine</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. August 6 2018.</span></a></li> <li><a href="https://vaers.hhs.gov/"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">VAERS Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://asm.org/Articles/2018/October/A-Brief-History-of-Cancer-Virology"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">ASM Article: A Brief History of Cancer Virology</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/title/vaccines-did-not-cause-rachels-autism"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">JHU Press: Vaccines Did Not Cause Rachel’s Autism</span></a></li> </ul> <p> </p>
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104: Burkholderia pseudomallei and the Neglected Tropical Disease Melioidosis with Direk Limmathurotsakul
<p><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Burkholderia pseudomallei</span></em> <span style="font-weight: 400;">is an endemic soil-dwelling bacterium in southeast Asia, where it causes melioidosis. Direk Limmathurotsakul discusses his work to improve the official reporting numbers and how</span></p> <p><strong>Julie’s Biggest Takeaways:</strong></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Melioidosis can present in a number of ways, such as sepsis, pneumonia, or abscesses. Because the symptoms are not specific, diagnosis requires isolation of the</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Burkholderia pseudomallei</span></em> <span style="font-weight: 400;">bacterium. Risk factors for disease include diabetes and exposure to the soil and water in which the bacterium lives.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In 2012, only 4 people were officially reported to have died of melioidosis in Thailand, but microbiological records suggest the real number was closer to 696. Scientists like Direk worked with the government to improve reporting requirements and the numbers now reflect a more accurate assessment of the disease burden. More accurate official reporting can lead to more public health campaigns, resources, and support for both scientists and patients.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Social media campaigns and a YouTube competition help to raise local awareness of melioidosis. The YouTube competition engages the community by allowing them to enter videos in their own dialect, which then inform others about how to minimize risk factors for melioidosis.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The AMR Dictionary gives simple definitions to jargon surrounding the problem of antimicrobial resistance. The definitions are translated into multiple languages in ways that make sense with colloquialisms. For example, in Thai, many people refer to antibiotics as antiseptics or anti-inflammatory drugs, and the dictionary takes local use into consideration in its definitions.</span></p> <p><strong>Links for this Episode:</strong></p> <p><a href="https://asm.org/mtmpoll">MTM Listener Survey</a></p> <p><a href= "http://www.tropmedres.ac/researchers/researcher/direk-limmathurotsakul"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Limmathurotsakul website at MORU Tropical Health Network</span></a></p> <p><a href= "http://www.melioidosis.info/infobox.aspx?pageID=101"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Melioidosis.info</span></a></p> <p><a href= "https://asm.org/Articles/2017/February/mBiosphere-(96)"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> Melioidosis: the Most Neglected Tropical Disease</span></a></p> <p><a href="https://www.antibioticfootprint.net/"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Antibiotic Footprint</span></a></p> <p><a href= "https://www.amrdictionary.net/dictionary.aspx?pageID=103&lang=en-GB"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">AMR Dictionary</span></a></p> <p> </p>
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103: Predicting Spillover Events with Barbara Han
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">When will the next disease outbreak occur? Why are some pests better at spreading disease than others? Disease Ecologist Barbara Han talks about her research that addresses these questions with computer modeling, as well as how modeling predictions can inform field and bench research.</span></p> <p>Take the listener survey: <a href= "https://asm.org/mtmpoll">asm.org/mtmpoll</a></p> <p>Visit <a href="https://asm.org/mtm">asm.org/mtm</a> for all links and notes.</p>
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102: HIV vaccines with Dan Barouch
<p>Why have scientists struggled to generate a protective HIV vaccine? Dan Barouch lays out the unique challenges and discusses the ongoing clinical trial with an adenovirus-based vaccine developed in his lab.</p> <p><br /> <strong>Julie’s Biggest Takeaways</strong></p> <p><br /> HIV poses unique and <span style= "font-weight: 400;">unprecedented</span> challenges for vaccine development including:</p> <ul> <li>Viral diversity: extremely wide range of viral diversity.</li> <li>No natural precedent: No human has cleared HIV based on their immune responses.</li> <li>Unknown correlates of protection: scientists are unsure what immune responses are important to induce.</li> </ul> <p>Barouch’s group uses a vaccine strategy comprised of computationally optimized mosaic HIV Env proteins, which represent pieces of the outermost glycoprotein, Env, that have been tied together in a way expected to generate protective immunity. Early data from animal and human trials suggests these mosaic antigens generate an immune response to a wider array of HIV types than previous vaccines. Clinical trials are ongoing to see if a strategy of mosaic antigen vaccination, followed by a boost with Env protein, is protective in people.</p> <p>Attenuated HIV hasn’t been used as a vaccine strategy because of fears it could revert to a disease-causing form; similar fears have prevented a whole-killed virus platform for vaccine development.</p> <p>A clinical trial testing safety in 3 locations around the world demonstrated that this vaccine strategy in people elicited immune responses shown to be protective in animals. An efficacy trial is ongoing in sub-Saharan Africa, with results expected in 2021. The trial is double blinded: neither the doctor nor the patient know who was administered the candidate vaccine or who was administered the placebo.</p> <p>HIV latent infection causes complications in vaccine development because</p> <ul> <li>HIV latency is seeded early, possibly in the first few days of infection.</li> <li>Once latency is established, the individual is infected for life.<br /> Any low level of HIV infection in vaccinated people could potentially seed this latent infection.</li> <li>Quickly-seeded latency means immune responses must react extremely quickly.</li> </ul> <p><strong>Featured Quotes</strong></p> <p>“The challenges in the development of a prophylactic HIV vaccine are among the toughest challenges in biomedical and scientific research.”</p> <p>“HIV poses unique challenges for vaccine development and truly unprecedented challenges that have never been posed before by vaccination. One such challenge is the viral diversity: HIV exists not as a single sequence, but as numerous different viral sequences — not only throughout the world, but also throughout regions, communities, and even within the same individual. So to create a vaccine against HIV, the immune responses have to be relevant for a vast diversity of viral sequences.”</p> <p>“At what efficacy level would an HIV vaccine be licenced by both the industry partners as well as the government regulators in a particular country, and at what level of efficacy would it actually have a major public health impact? It’s a moving target over time; it really depends on what the current state of the epidemic is at the time the vaccine is ready to be licensed.”</p> <p>“It’s critical to have high-quality research part of the clinical efficacy trials so that success or failure or something in between, that the HIV research field learns from it, and learns what worked well and what didn’t work well, and how to make better vaccines moving forward.”</p> <p>“I always encourage young scientists to pursue their dreams and to tackle hard problems. There’s a lot of easy problems to solve but some of the hardest problems are the most impactful in the end.”</p> <p><strong>Links for This Episode</strong></p> <ul> <li><a href="https://asm.org/mtmpoll" target="_blank" rel= "noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400;">MTM Listener Survey</span></a></li> <li><a href="http://cvvr.hms.harvard.edu/barouch/"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Barouch lab at the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research</span></a><span style= "font-weight: 400;">.</span></li> <li><a href= "https://asm.org/Podcasts/MTM/Episodes/HIV-interaction-with-the-immune-system-with-Mark-C"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">MTM: Mark Connors</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">.</span></li> <li><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30047376"><em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">The Lancet</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">: Evaluation of a Mosaic HIV-1 Vaccine in a Multicentre, Randomised, Double-Blide, Placebo-Controlled, Phase 1/2 a Clinical Trial (APPROACH) and in Rhesus Monkeys.</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6093284/"><em><span style="font-weight: 400;"> The Lancet</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">: A Step Forward for HIV Vaccines</span></a><span style= "font-weight: 400;">.</span></li> <li><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29793950"><em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Journal of Virology</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">: Similar Epitope Specificities of IgG and IgA Antibodies Elicited by Ad26 Vector Prime, Env Protein Boost Immunizations in Rhesus Monkeys.</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30427829"><em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">PLoS One</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">: First-in-Human Randomized, Controlled Trial of an oral, replicating adenovirus 26 vector vaccine for HIV-1.</span></a></li> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;">HOM Tidbit:</span> <a href= "http://bit.ly/2E1bnSd"><span style="font-weight: 400;">I am the Berlin Patient: A Personal Reflection</span></a><span style= "font-weight: 400;">.</span></li> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;">HOM Tidbit:</span> <a href= "https://www.fredhutch.org/en/news/center-news/2015/02/timothy-ray-brown-doctor-who-cured-him.html"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Doctor who cured Berlin Patient of HIV: ‘We knew we were doing something very special’</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">.</span><br /> <br /></li> </ul>
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101: Structural Biology Insights into Ebola Virus with Erica Ollmann Saphire
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Erica Ollmann Saphire discusses her research on Ebola virus glycoprotein and the changing nature of structural biology.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Ebola virus glycoprotein sequence can vary up to 50% between Ebola virus species, presenting a challenge to develop pan-Ebola therapeutics or vaccines. Erica Ollmann Saphire discusses her work on antibodies that neutralize all Ebola virus species and the changing nature of the structural biology toolkit used to study them.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Check out all our great podcasts at <a href="https://asm.org/podcast">asm.org/podcast</a></span></p> <ul> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;">MTM Listener Survey: <a href= "https://asm.org/mtmpoll">asm.org/mtmpoll</a></span></li> <li><a href="https://www.scripps.edu/ollmann-saphire/"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Ollmann-Saphire Lab Site</span></a></li> <li><a href="https://www.wwpdb.org/"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Protein Database</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26912366"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Isolation of Potent Neutralizing Antibodies from a Survivor of the 2014 Ebola Virus Outbreak.</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Science</span></em> <span style="font-weight: 400;">2016.</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30096313"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Systemic Analysis of Monoclonal Antibodies against Ebola Virus GP Defines Features that Contribute to Proteciton.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Cell</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">2018.</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://mbio.asm.org/content/9/5/e01674-18.long"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Structural Basis of Pan-Ebolavirus Neutralization by a Human Antibody against a Conserved, yet Cryptic Epitope.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">mBio</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">2018.</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://mbio.asm.org/content/9/6/e02249-18"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Tenacious Researchers Identify a Weakness in All Ebolaviruses.</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">mBio</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">2018.</span></a></li> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;">HOM Tidbit:</span> <a href= "https://nigeriahealthwatch.com/how-lassa-went-from-a-small-nigerian-town-to-a-well-known-virus/#.XFt4mM9KjOQ"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">How “Lassa,” a small Nigerian Town, was Stigmatized by having a Killer Virus Named after it.</span></a></li> </ul>
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100: It’s our 100th Episode! A retrospective into Meet the Microbiologist with Merry Buckley and Carl Zimmer
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">We pull back the curtain as former show hosts Merry Buckley and Carl Zimmer talk Meet the Scientist origins, favorite interviews and microbial topics.</span></p> <p><strong>Julie’s Biggest Takeaways</strong><span style= "font-weight: 400;">:</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Though the show started before podcasts were as popular as they are now, this didn’t pose a problem for Merry or Carl when soliciting guests - scientists were happy to have their work featured and to discuss their research.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Inviting guests may involve bringing in a mix of experienced and early-career researchers, but both Merry and Carl agreed that the science is the major deciding factor when selecting guests.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The ability to steer away from technical jargon and to use accessible, everyday analogies is one of the features shared by favorite guests. Carl uses the example of Bonnie Bassler, who explains bacterial quorum sensing as a communication mechanism.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Delving into the personal motivations and experiences of guests can be tough, even when these experiences relate to science. Merry uses Abigail Salyers’ claim of the English teacher who supported her through her high-school pregnancy and Julie uses Ilaria Capua’s experience when falsely accused of trafficking viruses for money.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Scientists can make themselves more visible to scientists and nonscientists by promoting their research on social media, particularly on Twitter.</span></p> <p><strong>Links for this Episode</strong><span style= "font-weight: 400;">:</span></p> <p><a href="https://asm.org/mtmpoll"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">MTM Listener Survery</span></a></p> <p><a href="https://twitter.com/thescistory"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Merry Buckley on twitter</span></a></p> <p><a href="https://carlzimmer.com/"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Carl Zimmer website</span></a></p> <p><a href="http://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-381/"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Carl Zimmer on TWiV</span></a></p> <p><a href= "https://carlzimmer.com/books/she-has-her-mothers-laugh/"><em><span style="font-weight: 400;"> She has her Mother’s Laugh</span></em></a></p> <p> </p>
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099: Microbial engineering for biofuels and beyond with Wayne Curtis
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">How does an engineer approach microbial genetics? cworks with microbes of all kinds to optimize metabolic and agricultural systems. Here he discusses his work with Rhodobacter to make biofuels and for membrane protein expression, with</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Agrobacterium</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">and plant pathogenic viruses to make drought-resistant plants, and with</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Clostridium</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">and yeast cocultures for lignocellulose digestion.</span></p> <p>Take the listener survey at <a href= "https://asm.org/mtmpoll">asm.org/mtmpoll</a></p> <p>Full shownotes at <a href= "https://asm.org/mtm">asm.org/mtm</a></p> <p><strong>Links for this Episode</strong><span style= "font-weight: 400;">:</span></p> <ul> <li><a href="http://www.curtislab.org/"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Wayne Curtis Lab site at Penn State University</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24497982"><em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">PLoS One</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">: Molecular Cloning, Overexpression, and Characerization of a Novel Water Channel protein from</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Rhodobacter sphaeroides</span></em></a></li> <li><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26008117"><em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Protein Expression and Purification</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Advancing</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Rhodobacter sphaeroides</span></em> <span style="font-weight: 400;">as a Platform for Expression of Functional Membrane Proteins</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://biotechnologyforbiofuels.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1754-6834-6-59"> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Biotechnology for Biofuels</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Consortia-Mediated Bioprocessing of Cellulose to Ethanol with a symbiotic</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Clostridium phytofermentans</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">/Yeast Co-Culture</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://www.gene.com/stories/cloning-insulin"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">HOM Tidbit: Genentech “Cloning Insulin” blog</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://www.gene.com/media/press-releases/4160/1978-09-06/first-successful-laboratory-production-o"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">HOM Tidbit: Genentech press release announcing insulin cloning</span></a></li> </ul> <p> </p>
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098: Insect and human microbial symbionts with Seth Bordenstein
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Over the course of a few decades, scientists have learned how insect endosymbiont bacteria affects insect reproduction and have used this understanding to control mosquito-born diseases. Seth Bordenstein talks about his research on the insect endosymbiont</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Wolbachia</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">, human-microbiome interactions, and how the ecosystem of a host and its microbes can be refered to as a holobiont.</span></p> <p>Take the listener survey at <a href= "https://asm.org/mtmpoll">asm.org/mtmpoll</a></p> <p><strong>Links for this Episode</strong><span style= "font-weight: 400;">:</span></p> <ul> <li><a href="https://lab.vanderbilt.edu/bordenstein/"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Bordenstein Lab at Vanderbilt University</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27822520"><em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">mSystems:</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">Getting the hologenome concept right: an eco-evolutionary framwork for hosts and their microbiomes.</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.2006842"> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">PLoS Biology</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Gut microbiota diversity across ethnicities in the United States</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">.</span></li> <li><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29686091"><em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">PNAS</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">: One prophage WO gene rescues cytoplasmic incompatibility in</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Drosophila melanogaster</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">.</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://www.vanderbilt.edu/wolbachiaproject/"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Discover the Microbes within! The Wolbachia Project</span></a></li> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;">HOM Tidbit:</span> <a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2041761/pdf/jmedres00003-0073.pdf"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Studies on Rickettsia-Like Micro-Organisms in Insects (1924 paper from Hertig and Wolbach)</span></a></li> </ul> <p> </p>
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097: The Cool World of Glacial Microbiology with Christine Foreman
<p><strong style= "text-align: start; font-weight: normal;">Christine Foreman explains how microbes can survive and grow on glaciers, and what we can learn from microbes in glacier ice cores.</strong></p> <p><strong style="text-align: start; font-weight: normal;">Take the MTM listener (that's you!) survey <a href= "https://asm.org/mtmpoll">asm.org/mtmpoll</a> it only take 3 minutes. Thanks!</strong></p> <h2><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Julie’s Biggest Takeaways</strong></span></h2> <p dir="ltr">Liquid inclusions between ice crystals create a vein-like network that allow microbes to survive between the ice crystals.</p> <p dir="ltr">Microbes living in glaciers have to adapt to a number of extreme environments: low water, low nutrients, extreme cold, and 6 months each of full sun or complete darkness mean there are many adaptive requirements to live in glaciers.</p> <p dir="ltr">Air bubbles trapped in ice cores provide data on the atmosphere 40,000 or 100,000 years ago. Using very old samples like these can inform scientists about the precipitation, temperature, and major cataclysmic events that occured at those time periods.</p> <p dir="ltr"><strong style= "text-align: start; font-weight: normal;">Because so many researchers share ice core samples, a research group like Foreman’s will often get a very small sample, as low as 7 ml, for a particular time period. Given that there are only 100 to 10,000 cells per ml, that is not a lot of sample to work with!</strong></p> <p dir="ltr">Aggregation of life, including microbial biofilms, changes the absorption of solar radiation. A clear, white surface radiates back as much as 90% of the solar radiation, but as aggregates form, they allow more of the solar radiation to be trapped. This in turn can increase microbial metabolic activity and allow even more microbial growth, leading to a feedback loop that increases absorption of solar energy and loss of glacial surfaces.</p> <p>Subscribe (free) on <a href= "https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/meet-the-scientist/id289419806?mt=2&ls=1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href= "https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cDovL21lZXR0aGVzY2llbnRpc3QubWljcm9iZXdvcmxkLmxpYnN5bnByby5jb20vcnNz" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Google Podcasts</a>, <a href= "http://www.subscribeonandroid.com/meetthescientist.microbeworld.libsynpro.com/rss" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Android</a>, <a href= "http://meetthescientist.microbeworld.libsynpro.com/rss" target= "_blank" rel="noopener">RSS</a>, or by <a href= "http://eepurl.com/c4MKHb" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">email</a>. Also available on the <a href= "http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id337731458?mt=8" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ASM Podcast Network app</a>.</p> <p> </p>
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096: HIV interaction with the immune system with Mark Connors
<p dir="ltr"><strong style= "text-align: start; font-weight: normal;">A very small proportion of people infected with HIV do not develop AIDS. Mark Connors talks about 2 patient populations that his lab studies, the elite controllers and the elite neutralizers, who control HIV infection with their respective T cell or B cell responses. Connors hopes his work on killer T cells and broadly neutralizing antibodies will help scientists develop better HIV therapies or an effective HIV vaccine.</strong></p> <p><strong>Links for This Episode</strong>:</p> <ul> <li dir="ltr"><a href= "https://www.niaid.nih.gov/research/mark-connors-md">Mark Connors labsite at NIAID</a></li> <li dir="ltr">Immunity article: <a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27851912">Identification of a CD4-binding-site antibody to HIV that evolved near-pan neutralization breadth.</a></li> <li dir="ltr">Immunity commentary: <a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27760334">Class II-restricted CD8s: New lessons violate old paradigms.</a></li> <li dir="ltr">Science article: <a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28931639">Trispecific broadly neutralizing HIV antibodies mediate potent SHIV protection in macaques.</a></li> <li dir="ltr"><a href="http://www.bit.ly/HIV-FreeFuture" target= "_blank" rel="noopener">Imagining an HIV-Free Future</a> (Smithsonian Worlds AIDS Day Event (Live Dec 4th at 6:45pm)</li> <li><strong style="text-align: start; font-weight: normal;">HOM Tidbit: <a href= "http://www.asmscience.org/content/book/10.1128/9781555816346">12 Diseases that Changed Our World</a></strong></li> <li dir="ltr"><a href="https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/C7P7XQY" target="_blank" rel="noopener">MTM Listener Survey</a></li> </ul>
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095: The Evolution of Virulence with Andrew Read
<p dir="ltr">In the early 2000s, Andrew Read predicted that non-sterilizing vaccines would lead to more virulent disease. He was able to test his hypothesis with the real-world example of Marek’s disease, a disease of chickens. Read tells the story of his discovery, and talks about his work on myxoma virus.</p> <p>Take the <a href="https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/C7P7XQY" target="_blank" rel="noopener">MTM Listener Survey</a></p> <p>Subscribe (free) on <a href= "https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/meet-the-scientist/id289419806?mt=2&ls=1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href= "https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cDovL21lZXR0aGVzY2llbnRpc3QubWljcm9iZXdvcmxkLmxpYnN5bnByby5jb20vcnNz" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Google Podcasts</a>, <a href= "http://www.subscribeonandroid.com/meetthescientist.microbeworld.libsynpro.com/rss" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Android</a>, <a href= "http://meetthescientist.microbeworld.libsynpro.com/rss" target= "_blank" rel="noopener">RSS</a>, or by <a href= "http://eepurl.com/c4MKHb" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">email</a>. Also available on the <a href= "http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id337731458?mt=8" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ASM Podcast Network app</a>. <a href= "http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id337731458?mt=8" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><br /></a></p> <p><strong>Julie’s Biggest Takeaways</strong>:</p> <p dir="ltr">Every chicken on the market is vaccinated against Marek’s disease. Infection with Marek’s disease causes tumors on the bird and can lead to direct death, or condemnation of a flock requiring their culling. Birds are vaccinated with a live, attenuated virus, and there have been 3 vaccine iterations. The first used a related herpesvirus isolated from turkeys, while the second vaccine added a second virus strain. Each of these vaccines conferred protection for about 10 years, after which the disease began popping up again. The 3rd generation vaccine added yet another serotype - this additional strain is a mutant strain of the chicken-infecting serotype - and has been effectively protecting chickens since the 1990s.</p> <p dir="ltr">Chickens do not get sterilizing immunity from the Marek’s disease vaccine; they can be infected by the wild-type virus, but the vaccine prevents infected animals from having disease symptoms. These asymptomatically infected animals can still shed the virus. Contrast this to human immunity from many of our vaccines, such as measles or smallpox vaccines, in which our immune response stops the virus from entering our cells and therefore blocks virus replication.</p> <p dir="ltr">Vaccination inhibits strains with lower virulence more than strains with higher virulence. This fact, combined with asymptomatic infection, means that although the infected birds don’t show disease symptoms, they are more likely to be shedding more virulent (or ‘hot’) strains. This generates selection for these hot strains that wouldn’t normally be successful. Without vaccination, host strains kill the host too quickly to allow viral replication and transmission to occur; Vaccines allow these hot strains to propagate.</p> <p dir="ltr">Vaccine resistance is much more rare than antibiotic or <strong style= "text-align: start; font-weight: normal;">antimicrobial</strong> resistance. This is due to a number of factors, including the diversity of microbial population being acted upon (small with initial infection, large when treated with antimicrobial drugs). Vaccines are much more evolution-proof for these reasons.</p> <p dir="ltr">Purposeful release of myxoma virus during the 1950s in Australia killed between 10 and 100 million animals, or 99.9% of the rabbit population. Frank Fenner followed the virus and surviving rabbit populations and discovered that myxoma viruses that were too virulent were less likely to be transmitted, because they killed the host too quickly. He also showed that the small surviving number of rabbits were more resistant to viral infection. The arms race between the two has generated a virus so immunosuppressive that Read’s group has found the currently circulating myxoma virus has changed the way it kills its host: the virus disables the rabbit immune system and allows the rabbit’s own microbiome to cause invasive bacterial disease.</p>
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094: Containing a Nipah virus outbreak with G Arunkumar
<p dir="ltr">A recent Nipah virus outbreak in Kerala, India, was halted due to improved detection capabilities. <a href= "https://twitter.com/arunviro" target="_blank" rel="noopener">G. Arunkumar</a> tells the story of his involvement.</p> <p>Host: <a href= "index.php/podcasts/meet-the-microbiologist/item/6794" target= "_blank" rel="noopener">Julie Wolf</a> </p> <p>Take the <a href="https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/C7P7XQY" target="_blank" rel="noopener">MTM Listener Survey</a></p> <p>Subscribe (free) on <a href= "https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/meet-the-scientist/id289419806?mt=2&ls=1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href= "https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cDovL21lZXR0aGVzY2llbnRpc3QubWljcm9iZXdvcmxkLmxpYnN5bnByby5jb20vcnNz" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Google Podcasts</a>, <a href= "http://www.subscribeonandroid.com/meetthescientist.microbeworld.libsynpro.com/rss" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Android</a>, <a href= "http://meetthescientist.microbeworld.libsynpro.com/rss" target= "_blank" rel="noopener">RSS</a>, or by <a href= "http://eepurl.com/c4MKHb" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">email</a>. Also available on the <a href= "http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id337731458?mt=8" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ASM Podcast Network app</a>. <a href= "http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id337731458?mt=8" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><br /></a></p> <p>Julie’s Biggest Takeaways:</p> <p dir="ltr">Because bats are the normal reservoir, Nipah virus outbreaks appear to be seasonal, with an increase in cases coinciding with the spring, when the bat reproduction season is.</p> <p dir="ltr">Once a person is infected through direct contact with the virus, the virus is transmitted person-to-person through respiratory droplets.</p> <p dir="ltr">Family clusters combined with the right incubation time acted as a clue that a Nipah virus outbreak had begun.</p> <p dir="ltr">Molecular tests improved virus detection during the 2018 Nipah outbreak because patients presented symptoms within a few days, which was too short for them to have developed antibodies. Molecular tests allowed identification of infected patients within days. Previous outbreaks have taken weeks to months, or even years, to identify the infectious virus.</p> <p dir="ltr">A single crossover event in the recent Nipah outbreak led to person-to-person transmission within the 22 additional individuals. Hospital infection control practices are important to reduce transmission to healthcare workers and hospital attendants.</p> <p>Featured Quotes:</p> <p dir="ltr">“Most of the Nipah outbreaks, you find a lot of hospital transmission from the infected patient to healthcare workers, the other patients in the ward as well as the patient attendants.”</p> <p dir="ltr">“The only virus that can cause encephalitis in a family cluster is Nipah. With other encephalitis viruses like herpes or Japanese encephalitis virus, you don’t see family clusters.”</p> <p dir="ltr">“Nipah virus is a level 4 pathogen, so the cultivation can be only done in a level 4 laboratory. But molecular tests allow you to test for it at a lower level laboratory, such as a BSL-3 lab, because you inactivate the virus. You are only focusing on RNA. The risk can be reduced.”</p> <p dir="ltr"><strong style= "text-align: start; font-weight: normal;">“When you use serological diagnosis, the antibodies are detectable only after 8-10 days after onset of illness. Nipah is a very, very acute, serious fatal disease. Many people may die before they develop antibody. So we need to use a combination of real-time PCR and antibody.”</strong></p> <p dir="ltr">“This is the first time in the history of Nipah that the diagnosis was done in country. All the previous diagnoses were done at CDC Atlanta.”</p> <p>Links for This Episode:</p> <ul> <li dir="ltr"><a href="https://manipal.edu/dvr.html">Department of Virus Research at Manipal Academy of Higher Education</a></li> <li dir="ltr"><a href="http://bit.ly/2PA55AS">Journal of Clinical Microbiology Review on Nipah virus</a></li> <li dir="ltr"><a href="index.php/global-impact-report">ASM Global Impact Report</a></li> <li>HOM Tidbit: <a href= "https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2017/02/25/515258818/a-taste-for-pork-helped-a-deadly-virus-jump-to-humans"> NPR piece interviewing K. B. Chua and others</a><strong style= "text-align: start; font-weight: normal;"><br /></strong></li> <li><strong style="text-align: start; font-weight: normal;">HOM Tidbit: <a href= "https://jcm.asm.org/content/56/6/e01875-17">Science article first describing Nipah virus</a></strong></li> </ul>
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093: Biofilms and metagenomic diagnostics in clinical infections with Robin Patel
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Robin Patel discusses her work on prosthetic joint infections and how metagenomics is changing infectious disease diagnostic procedures.</span></p> <p><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Take the listener survey: <a href= "https://asm.org/mtmpoll"><strong>asm.org/mtmpoll</strong></a></span></em></p> <p><strong>Julie’s Biggest Takeaways</strong><span style= "font-weight: 400;">:</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The term antimicrobial resistance can mean many things. Although acquisition of genetic elements can lead to drug resistance, so can different growth lifestyles of bacteria; the same bacteria growing in liquid culture may be more susceptible to a drug than those bacteria growing on a biofilm. Lifestyle and genetics can intertwine, however, when bacteria growing as a biofilm exchange resistance genes through horizontal gene transfer.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">How do bacteria reach an implanted surface, such as on a prosthetic joint, to cause infection? It may rarely occur during surgery, if even a single bacterium reaches the joint surface despite the sterile conditions; alternatively, it could occur through hematogenous spread (through the blood) after the surgery is over. Most infections are believed to be seeded at the time of implantation.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">While scientists don’t perform teeny, tiny implants in animal models of infection, the materials are placed in animal bone to mimic as similar an immune response as possible.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Targeted metagenomics and shotgun metagenomics are both being developed clinically. Targeted metagenomics looks at one specific gene found in a number of species, such as the 16S ribosomal RNA gene. Shotgun metagenomic looks at all DNA present, and requires a lot more cleaning up to eliminate human genomic material, which is the major sequence of any human-derived sample.</span></p> <p> </p>
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092: A new type of malaria vaccine utilizing the mosquito immune system with Carolina Barillas-Mury
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">To eliminate malaria, you have to stop transmission, and that’s what Carolina Barillas-Mury hopes to do. Her work on the interaction of the malaria parasite</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Plasmodium falciparum</span></em> <span style="font-weight: 400;">may lead to a transmission-blocking vaccine. She explains how, and discusses the co-evolution of malaria, mosquitos, and man.</span></p> <p> </p> <p><strong><em>Take the listener survey</em></strong>: <a href= "https://asm.org/mtmpoll">asm.org/mtmpoll</a></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Julie’s Biggest Takeaways:</strong></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">When born, babies carry antibodies from their mothers, which may protect them through passive immunity; additionally, babies are more easily protected from mosquito exposure by placing them under bed netting. As they grow, children become more active, and their passive immunity concurrently wanes. They may be exposed to mosquitoes carrying malaria parasites and their still-developing immune systems aren’t able to keep the parasites from replicating, leading to more severe disease, including cerebral malaria.</span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Culicines and Anopholines are two major groups of mosquitoes that carry disease. The culicines have recently spread around the world, but the Anopholines species moved from Africa into South America one hundred million years ago, but malaria only moved into the New World a few hundred years ago with the slave trade. The relationship between the mosquitoes and malaria parasites has been evolving much longer in Africa than it has been with the specific population of mosquitoes in South America - one of the reasons why the disease is less devastating in South America.</span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The ‘invisibility gene,’</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">pfs47</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">, is expressed in the banana-shaped ookinete and helps the malaria parasite to avoid detection by the mosquito immune system. The</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">pfs47</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">malarial gene is adapted for the localized mosquito populations from the same region as the parasite; if an African mosquito is infected with a South American parasite, the parasite is more likely to be recognized and killed than if the African mosquito is infected with an African parasite.</span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The most immunogenic proteins in parasites may produce an immune response, but this immune response may not block infection. New vaccines are concentrating on where antibodies bind, to ensure there is a biological effect of the immune response, and this is why Barillas-Mury has used a modified Pfs47 protein to generate immune responses, rather than its native form.</span></p> <p>Links for this Episode:</p> <ul> <li><a href= "https://www.niaid.nih.gov/research/carolina-v-barillas-mury-md-phd"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Carolina Barillas-Mury NIAID website</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30002917"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">NPJ Vaccines: Antibody Targeting of a Specific Region of</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Pfs47</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">Blocks</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Plasmodium falciparum</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">Malaria Transmission.</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27992481"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">PLoS One: Molecular Analysis of Pfs47-Mediated</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Plasmodium</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">Evasion of Mosquito Immunity.</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26598665"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">PNAS:</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Plasmodium</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">Evasion of Mosquito Immunity and Global Malaria Transmission: The Lock-and-Key Theory.</span></a></li> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;">HOM Tidbit:</span> <a href= "http://bit.ly/2QbEUNt"><span style="font-weight: 400;">History of the Discovery of the Malaria Parasites and their Vectors</span></a></li> <li><a href="https://asm.org/mtmpoll">MTM Listener Survey</a></li> </ul> <p> </p>
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091: SARS and MERS coronaviruses with Stanley Perlman
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">How do researchers study a new pathogen? Stanley Perlman talks about how virus researchers studied SARS and MERS after they emerged, what they learned, and why there are no more cases of SARS. He also discusses his work on a coronavirus model of multiple sclerosis.</span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>We want to hear from you!</strong> Please <a href="https://asm.org/mtmpoll">take our listener survey.</a></span></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Julie’s Biggest Takeaways</strong>:</p> <p dir="ltr">Coronaviruses have the largest RNA genomes, with up to 40 kB of sequence, but why their genomes is so big is unclear - their genomes don’t seem to code for more genes than viruses with smaller genomes.</p> <p dir="ltr">Before the SARS coronavirus outbreak in 2002, few severe human infectious coronaviruses were known, but the several coronaviruses had been identified that cause serious disease in animals such as pigs, cats, and cows.</p> <p dir="ltr">Where did SARS go? SARS coronavirus had to cross into people and mutate for better infectivity, and when infecting people, it caused a lower respiratory disease. Quarantining SARS patients is extremely effective because the symptoms coincide with infectivity, and spread of SARS was quenched by strict use of quarantine. Quarantine is less effective for diseases like influenza or measles, because patients are contagious before showing symptoms.</p> <p dir="ltr">Because of its low person-to-person transmission, there’s very small possibility of major outbreaks from large gatherings such as the Hajj. MERS acts more like an opportunistic infection, and its transmission among people has been mostly among immunocompromised or otherwise sick people in the hospital.</p> <p dir="ltr"><strong style= "text-align: start; font-weight: normal;">By the time patients present with multiple sclerosis, it may be 20 years after an inciting event that triggers the disease. By using a murine coronavirus inciting event for neuron demyelinization in mice, the role of the immune system in this process can be interrogated. Scientists may not understand the exact cause of MS in people, but this model helps them to understand how different immune cells contribute to disease.</strong></p>
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090: Using yeast to generate new chocolate and beer flavors with Kevin Verstrepen
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">You may know that beer is fermented, but did you know making chocolate requires a fermentation step? Kevin Verstrepen discusses how his lab optimizes flavor profiles of the yeast used in this fermentation step, and explains how yeast was domesticated before microorganisms had been discovered.</span></p> <p><a href="https://asm.org/mtmpoll">Take the MTM listener survey</a>, we want to hear from you. Thanks!</p> <p><strong>Julie’s Biggest Takeaways</strong><span style= "font-weight: 400;">:</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Microbes are used to ferment foods, but they do more than just add ethanol or carbon dioxide: their metabolic byproducts add flavors and aromas that are an essential part of the fermented food.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In cocoa bean fermentation, the yeast that are part of the initial fermentative microbial population control the development of the subsequent microbial populations and the quality of the final product.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">How the volatile flavor compounds generated during fermentation survive the roasting step remains unclear. Heat can destroy these labile compounds, but Kevin thinks the compounds were able to survive roasting because they become embedded in lipids (fat) of the cocoa beans. Similar compounds produced during bread rising are destroyed during baking, possibly because there is less fat to protect these molecules.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mixing data science and beer: a computer scientist in the Verstrepen lab analyzed the flavor profiles of several hundred beers, which were also analyzed by a trained tasting panel. The goal is to link the chemistry to the aroma, which requires complex algorithms due to the integration of hundreds of flavor molecules.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">A spontaneous hybridization between</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Saccharomyces cerevisiae</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">, the normal fermentative yeast, and</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">S. eubayanus</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">, a cold-tolerant yeast, resulting in a hybrid that can ferment at colder temperatures, as is required for brewing lager beers. There are 2 lineages that are used by most breweries, and while different characteristics have evolved over time, the genetic bottleneck limits characteristic diversity. The Verstrepen lab made several crosses between these two species and selected for hybrids that generated those with desirable characteristics. Molecular means can determine the offspring that are most likely to confer desired characteristics, but the commercial yeasts are not specifically genetically manipulated to this end.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Domesticated yeast have different characteristics than their wild counterparts. Domesticated yeasts have lost the ability to use certain sugars, but have gained abilities associated with their use; beer yeasts use maltose at much higher rates, for example. When the origins are traced using molecular methods, it goes back to medieval times. How to domesticate an organism that hasn’t been identified? Brewers have long transferred sediment from one batch of beer into new batches, which is how selection for human-desired characteristics began. Wine yeasts, which are not passaged but are likely inoculated from the same vineyard annually, show less domestication than the beer yeast.</span></p>
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089: Using the zebrafish microbiome to study development and the gut-brain axis with John Rawls
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">How can the humble zebrafish teach us about the human microbiome? John Rawls discusses the benefits of using animal models</span></p> <p>Take the <a href="https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/C7P7XQY" target="_blank" rel="noopener">MTM Listener Survey</a> </p> <p><strong>Julie’s Biggest Takeaways:</strong></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Zebrafish and other model animals provide opportunities to understand host-microbe interactions. Zebrafish are particularly useful for imaging studies, due to their translucent skin and the ease of</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">in vivo</span></em> <span style="font-weight: 400;">microscopy. This allows zebrafish to be used to in studies of spatial architecture or longitudinal studies (imaging the same fish specimen over time) in ways that other model organisms can’t be.</span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Zebrafish get their first microbes from their mother, just like mammals! The chorion, a protective coating that surrounds the zebrafish embryo, is seeded with microbes from passing through the cloaca of the female zebrafish. Surface-sterilizing this chorion allows researchers to generate germ-free animals that are very useful for microbiome studies.</span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">A gut epithelial transcription factor is regulated by a signal from the gut microbiota, and this signaling interaction is conserved among all vertebrates. The transcription factor itself, HNF4, is found in both complex and simple animals, like the sea sponge, and may serve a long-conserved function in regulating interactions between animals and their microbiota.</span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Enteroendocrine cells release hormones based on specific chemical cues, but they can also interact with the nervous system. This makes them an important part of the gut-brain system, and the power of in vivo imaging has made zebrafish a great model for better understanding their function. Specific members of the microbiome specifically stimulate these EECs, sending signals up the vagus nerve to the brain.</span></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Featured Quotes:</strong></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“We know that the zebrafish functionality of its intestine is very similar to what one encounters in the mouse or human intestine and we and others have been able to translate our findings from zebrafish studies into human biology.”</span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">On genomic studies that have found similar transcription profiles in zebrafish, stickleback fish, mice, and humans: “This suggested that there is a core transcriptome that gut epithelial cell use in different vertebrate species that haven’t shared an ancestor in 420 million years!”</span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Comparing fish and mouse: “Genes regulated by microbiota in these respective hosts display a lot of overlap. Many of the same signaling pathways and metabolic processes are affected by microbiotas in different hosts in similar ways.”</span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“There’s been a lot of interesting research documenting the role of the intestinal microbiome in promoting harvest of dietary nutrients we consume. Much of that literature has been focused on the events that occur in the distal intestine, in the colon, where recalcitrant carbohydrates and proteins that make it that far, many of which we are unable to digest, are made available to the colonic microbiome, members of which are able to digest and degrade them to things such as short chain fatty acids, which we can consume.”</span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“Eventually, we’ll have some strong candidates in terms of specific bacterial strains or communities or factors or pharmacologic agents that could be used to affect dietary fat absorption or metabolism. We’re still a long ways away from that.”</span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“One of the fascinating things about developmental biology is that the only way you get a viable animal is if the different tissues and the different cells within the body are coordinating amongst themselves for energy, for nutrients, for oxygen, et cetera. As you’re building an animal and as you’re sustaining an animal, the different tissues have to cooperate. When that doesn’t happen, when tissues or cells become selfish or don’t play by the rules, you get things like cancer and other diseases as well...when I began learning about the field of microbiome science and some of the work that was coming out from that field, it sounded to me like the microbiome was going to be a really important part of that. Not only can we think of the microbiome as a ‘microbial organ,’ as it is sometimes called, and therefore worthy of consideration within the context of developmental biology, but also the influence of the microbiome on any one tissue is going to modify its need and its ability to cooperate within the integrated system.”</span></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Links for this Episode:</strong></p> <p> </p> <ul> <li><a href="https://sites.duke.edu/rawlslab/"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">John Rawls’ lab website</span></a></li> <li><a href="https://sites.duke.edu/rawlslab/images/"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">More amazing zebrafish images from the Rawls lab</span></a></li> <li><a href="https://sites.duke.edu/microbiome/"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Duke University Microbiome Center</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28385711"><em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Genome Research</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">article on HNF4 regulation</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22980325"><em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Cell Host and Microbe</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">article on microbial influence on fatty acid absorption</span></a></li> </ul> <p> </p>
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088: Using Bacterial Structures as Nanowires with Gemma Reguera
<p dir="ltr">Gemma Reguera discusses her studies of Geobacter pili, which transfers electrons to iron oxide and other minerals, and can be used for new biotech applications.</p> <p><strong>Host:</strong> <a href= "index.php/podcasts/meet-the-microbiologist/item/6794" target= "_blank" rel="noopener">Julie Wolf</a> </p> <p>Subscribe (free) on <a href= "https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/meet-the-scientist/id289419806?mt=2&ls=1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href= "https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cDovL21lZXR0aGVzY2llbnRpc3QubWljcm9iZXdvcmxkLmxpYnN5bnByby5jb20vcnNz" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Google Podcasts</a>, <a href= "http://www.subscribeonandroid.com/meetthescientist.microbeworld.libsynpro.com/rss" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Android</a>, <a href= "http://meetthescientist.microbeworld.libsynpro.com/rss" target= "_blank" rel="noopener">RSS</a>, or by <a href= "http://eepurl.com/c4MKHb" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">email</a>. Also available on the <a href= "http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id337731458?mt=8" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ASM Podcast Network app</a>. <a href= "http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id337731458?mt=8" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><br /></a></p> <p><strong>Julie’s Biggest Takeaways</strong>:</p> <p dir="ltr"><em>Geobacter sulferreducans</em>, a bacterium that “breathes” rust, is the lab representative of the genus <em>Geobacter</em> that dump electrons onto rust. These specialized microbes use minerals like manganese oxide and iron oxide (also known as rust) for respiration in both terrestrial and aquatic sediments. Although many species are strict anaerobes, a few species can grow under microaerophilic conditions, in which the bacteria will respire the oxygen to eliminate its toxic effects on the cell.</p> <p dir="ltr">Iron oxide respiration relies on the <em>Geobacter</em> pili, a simple structure composed of a single peptide repeat. The pili concentrate on one side of the bacterial cell, where they connect the cell with the iron oxide to release the electrons that have been accumulating. The pili immediately depolymerize and retract, shedding the mineral before returning into the cell.</p> <p dir="ltr">Mass-producing pilin subunits in <em>E. coli</em> took a bit of trouble shooting, but now Reguera and her colleagues can make them on a much larger scale, which bodes well for expanding tests into electronic applications.</p> <p>Commercialization grants address the “valley of death,” the chasm between the technologies developed at the bench and the scale of production necessary for industrialization.</p> <p><strong style="text-align: start; font-weight: normal;"><br /> <em>Geobacter</em> can bind and reduce many minerals using their pili, including uranium and other toxic heavy metals like lead and cobalt. Using <em>Geobacter</em> pili in agricultural soils or aquaculture waters may help remove these contaminants and improve the health of these ecosystems.</strong></p> <p><strong>Featured Quotes</strong>:</p> <p dir="ltr">“I remember when I started as a microbiology student, I think I underappreciated the role that electrons and the movement of electrons play in microbiology.”</p> <p dir="ltr">“There is absolutely not a single process in living organisms that is not energized by the movement of electrons.”</p> <p dir="ltr">“The Earth didn’t have oxygen for the first 2 billion years, if not longer - and there was life! On Earth! Those early organisms were really great at finding minerals, metals, just about anything other than oxygen to dump their electrons, continue to grow, and to colonize the Earth.”</p> <p dir="ltr">“When you start comparing the structure and the amino acid composition of this subunit to any other known bacterial pilins, you really see 2 remarkable changes: one of them is the pilin of Geobacter is very small. the second is that little stick has aromatic amino acids. When the sticks come together to make the filament, they cluster very close to each other and create like a staircase for the electrons to move fast. It’s like a magic combination in which you have the right structural reduction and the right amino acids to really fit like a puzzle to create paths for electrons.”</p> <p dir="ltr">“What has always motivated me is learning something new.”</p> <p><strong>Links for This Episode</strong>:</p> <ul> <li dir="ltr"><a href= "https://msu.edu/user/reguera/HOME.html">Gemma Reguera lab website</a></li> <li dir="ltr"><a href= "http://www.peoplebehindthescience.com/dr-gemma-reguera/">Gemma Reguera interview on “People Behind the Science”</a></li> <li>HOM: <a href="http://bit.ly/2vtX05H">Thirty-Second Annual Meeting of the Society of American Bacteriologists</a><strong style="text-align: start; font-weight: normal;"><br /> </strong></li> <li><strong style="text-align: start; font-weight: normal;">HOM: <a href="http://bit.ly/2KJyPoI">Barney Cohen: An Appreciation (Bacteriological Reviews memorial)</a></strong></li> </ul>
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087: Legionnaire’s Disease with Michele Swanson
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Why do Legionnaire’s Disease outbreaks occur mostly in the summer? What is the connection of the Flint change in water source and Legionella outbreaks in the area? Michele Swanson discusses her work on Legionella pneumophila and her path from busy undergraduate to ASM President.</span></p> <p><strong>Julie’s Biggest Takeaways:</strong></p> <p><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Legionella pneumophila</span></em> <span style="font-weight: 400;">is a waterborne microbe that lives in fresh water and can colonize water systems of the built environment. Colonization of cooling systems, like those used in air conditioning systems, can lead to contaminated water droplets that can cause disease.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Legionella are very adaptable to different environment, but scientists don’t have great models to determine the exact preferences of the bacterium.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">After Flint switched water sources from lake to the Flint river, a chemical that prevents corrosion was omitted from the water treatment. This led to lead in the water, which was detected in pediatric patients. An increase of legionella cases in the two years also occurred, and the question was whether the outbreak was related to the shift in water chemistry. Michele joined a team of water engineers, epidemiologists and sociologists to answer this question, and the team found an association between low chlorine levels and high risk of legionella disease.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Across the globe, more than 80% of disease is associated with</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">L. pneumophila</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">serogroup 1. The serogroup is based on the bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS) structure, which in this strain is very hydrophobic and may allow this serogroup to withstand a higher degree of desiccation than other strains. A urine-based diagnostic test works well, but only to detect serogroup 1. The strain isolated from patients of the Flint outbreak were serogroup 6, as were Legionella isolated from the homes of Flint residents.</span></p> <p><strong>Featured Quotes:</strong></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“Amoeba are very good at digesting bacteria, eating them for food, but</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Legionella</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">, because it’s been under this severe selective pressure of the amoeba, they’ve evolved tools to allow them not only to survive within the amoeba but to replicate within the vacuole of the amoeba.”</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“We now have equipment that throws water into the air and gives [</span><em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Legionella</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">] a new opportunity to be ingested by a macrophage. It can then deploy the same tricks it uses to grow inside amoeba to grow inside the macrophage.”</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“[Human infection] is a tragedy for the patient, but also for the microbe...humans are a dead-end for the bacterium.”</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“I was really delighted to be recruited to work with this interdisciplinary team on a public health crisis here in my home state. It has opened my eyes to a much more complex pathway and I just feel really privileged in this stage in my career to be able to turn my attention to these larger public health issues.”</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“People want to hear encouragement; we have a tendency to compare ourselves to those who are 5-10 years ahead of us. Encouragement really is valuable.”</span></p> <p><strong>Links for this Episode:</strong></p> <p><a href= "https://medicine.umich.edu/dept/microbiology-immunology/michele-swanson-phd"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Michele Swanson at the University of Michigan</span></a></p> <p><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">mBio</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">:</span> <a href= "http://mbio.asm.org/content/9/1/e00016-18"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Prevalence of infection-competent Legionella pneumophila within premise plumbing within southeast Michigan</span></a></p> <p><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">PNAS</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">:</span> <a href= "http://www.pnas.org/content/115/8/E1730"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Assessment of the Legionnaire’s disease outbreak in Flint, Michigan</span></a></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Microbial Sciences blog post:</span> <a href= "https://www.asm.org/index.php/general-science-blog/item/7198-examining-flint-new-research-highlights-lack-of-legionella-public-policy"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Examining Flint: New research highlights lack of Legionella public policy</span></a></p> <p><a href="http://bit.ly/2oig5W2"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">ASM membership</span></a></p> <p> </p>
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086: Toxoplasma gondii and neuro-invasive disease with Anita Koshy
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">How is</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Toxoplasma gondii</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">, a protozoan that causes neuro-invasive disease, transmitted as a foodborne pathogen? Why are cats important in transmitting</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Toxoplasma</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">infection? Anita Koshy answer these questions and talks about her research on the latest Meet the Microbiologist.</span></p> <p><strong>Julie’s Biggest Takeaways</strong><span style= "font-weight: 400;">:</span><span style= "font-weight: 400;"><br /></span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The primary host for</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">T. gondii</span></em> <span style="font-weight: 400;">is cats, in which the protozoan can undergo sexual reproduction. Why cats? No one knows, in part because there isn’t a good in vitro system to study cat epithelial cell interactions with</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">T. gondii</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Most warm-blooded animals, including birds, can be infected with</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Toxoplasma</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. Intermediate hosts can pass</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Toxoplasma</span></em> <span style="font-weight: 400;">from one to another if one eat these tissue cysts, explaining why</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Toxoplasma</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">can be a foodborne pathogen.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In healthy individuals, the immune response clears most fast-growing cells (tachyzoites) but some protozoans convert to a slow-growing cell form (bradyzoites). In people, these bradyzoites form cysts predominantly in the brain, the heart and the skeletal muscle.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Some serological studies suggest a tie between</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Toxoplasma</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">infection and brain disorders, but these are less definitive than causative studies in mice. Populations with high</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Toxoplasma</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">or low</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Toxoplasma</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">prevalence don’t see a correlative incidence of disorders such as schizophrenia or Alzheimer’s disease.</span></p> <p><strong>Featured Quotes</strong><span style= "font-weight: 400;">:</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“When we talk about neuroinfectious diseases, we’re talking about the diseases that cause symptoms. Those that can get into the central nervous system and those that cause symptomatic disease are the same.”</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“A parasite is sitting there dormant or maybe reactivating every so often and the immune system comes in and deals with that reactivation. But when you lack an immune system, all of a sudden when that parasite reactivates, there is no longer this immune system that will come in and clear it out.”</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“What we don’t know is whether reactivation occurs preferentially in the brain. There is evidence from HIV patients of inflammation of the heart or inflammation of the skeletal tissue - but those weren’t the symptoms that presented, which were of the brain. Did reactivation happen in the brain, or did it occur elsewhere and the parasite was able to travel to the brain and there’s no longer an immune system to clear it out?”</span></p> <p><strong>Links for this Episode</strong><span style= "font-weight: 400;">:</span></p> <ul> <li><a href="http://koshylab.arizona.edu/anitakoshy"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Koshy Lab Site</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2002/07/kitty-litter-killing-otters"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Sea Otter Infection with</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Toxoplasma</span></em></a></li> <li><a href= "http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/267/1452/1591"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> Rats Infected with</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">T. gondii</span></em> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Lose Their Aversion to Cat Urine</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/550f/9cd4c56d24fe92614add5569cd2f59a1f1d2.pdf"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">HOM Tidbit: The History of</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Toxoplasma gondii</span></em></a></li> <li><a href= "https://www.theguardian.com/news/1999/apr/06/guardianobituaries1"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> Bill Hutchinson obituary</span></a></li> </ul> <p> </p>
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085: Using DNA technologies to answer epidemiological questions with Jennifer Gardy
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Jennifer Gardy talks about whole-genome sequencing as a technique to address public health issues using genomic epidemiology. She talks about her research on TB and new DNA sequencing technologies, including her vision for microbial genetic sequencing as one piece of the puzzle in the future of public health.</span></p> <p><strong>Julie’s Biggest Takeaways</strong><span style= "font-weight: 400;">:</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Whole-genome sequencing technologies are replacing older DNA technologies to identify relatedness between microbial isolates. The genome sequences help to identify epidemiological questions such as the origins of an outbreak.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">A pathogen’s genome being passed person-to-person accrues small changes, similar to children playing telephone - except those children are scattered around the room, and you have to logically deduce the order in which the information was passed.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">DNA sequencing has moved forward faster than the upstream genomic preparation and downstream sequence analysis areas; Gardy expects advances in these ‘bookend’ areas to be breakthroughs of the future.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Ebola and Zika outbreaks were test cases for portable DNA sequencing technologies, but informative based on the different disease presentation: Ebola patients have high viral loads and thus a lot of genomic material, but Zika patients have much lower viral loads and it was much harder to get samples.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Based on pathogen characteristics, DNA sequencing can identify the end of an outbreak. Gardy used sequencing to find that patients with TB, which can take years to develop into fulminant disease, had been infected years previous, and was able to see that transmission was no longer ongoing.</span></p> <p><strong>Featured Quotes</strong><span style= "font-weight: 400;">:</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“Genomics is really cool because instead of interviewing people about what happened in an outbreak, we’re interviewing the pathogen!”</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“[Working at BCCDC] is a really nice ecosystem, where you can really see the results of your research changing public care policy and practice in real time, and that is incredibly rewarding.”</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“The only prediction you can make about DNA sequencing is there’s always going to be something new and different.”</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“Depending on your use-case, sometimes you need to go after the whole genome and other times a targeted approach is more than enough.”</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“I’m excited to see how this [microbial DNA sequencing] work fits in into an overall public health landscape. It’s cool to sequence genomes and make some reports about transmission networks, but that’s just one small part of a very big public health system that is trying to keep populations healthy. It requires so many different people, from nurses and doctors on the frontline to policy makers behind the scenes to social scientists who are interacting with patients or care providers to people that are understanding the economics of these things... when you start to see how these different pieces of the puzzle fit together, I think there’s a lot of opportunities in the future for making microbial genomics just one piece of a large interdisciplinary puzzle of people that are working together across different fields to address a disease from multiple different angles.”</span></p> <p><strong>Links for This Episode</strong><span style= "font-weight: 400;">:</span></p> <ul> <li><a href="http://www.jennifergardy.com/"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Jennifer Gardy’s website</span></a></li> <li><a href= "http://www.spph.ubc.ca/person/jennifer-gardy/"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Jennifer Gardy at UBC</span></a></li> <li><a href="https://nanoporetech.com/products/minion"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Nanopore Minion</span></a></li> <li><a href="https://www.aldacenter.org/"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://www.beakerhead.com/programs/scicomm/2018-sci-comm-banff"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> Banff Science Communications</span></a></li> <li><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2599350/pdf/yjbm00317-0091.pdf"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">HOM Tidbit: Albrecht Kossel, a Biographical Sketch</span></a></li> </ul>
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084: How viral-bacterial interactions influence viral infection with Julie Pfeiffer
<p dir="ltr"><strong style= "text-align: start; font-weight: normal;">See the full shownotes at: <a href="https://asm.org/mtm">asm.org/mtm</a></strong></p> <p dir="ltr"><strong style= "text-align: start; font-weight: normal;"><a href= "https://profiles.utsouthwestern.edu/profile/80210/julie-pfeiffer.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Julie Pfeiffer</a> tells the story of how she serendipitously found a role for the gut microbiota during polio virus infection, and how she and her lab discovered an important role for bacterial glycans in viral biology. She also talks about viral fitness strategies, and how RNA viruses and DNA viruses benefit from making different amounts of errors when copying their genomes.</strong></p> <p dir="ltr">Julie's biggest takeaways:</p> <p dir="ltr">Determining the exact nature of the glycans that play these roles has been difficult because they are very complex. Aspects of lipopolysaccharide, chitin, and peptidoglycan are all sufficient to bind the viral capsid, but because of their structural complexity, it’s difficult to pinpoint the exact molecular interaction.</p> <p dir="ltr">Bacterial glycan interactions with viruses benefit the virus in two ways: the virus can be delivered to a host cell it will infect, and the viral capsid is stabilized. Whether there is a benefit to the bacterium during these interactions is unknown, but is an active area of research in Julie’s lab.</p> <p dir="ltr">Many viruses can be inactivated at body temperature or even room temperature if they prematurely release their genetic material. Polio viruses are simply a protein shell surrounding an RNA genome, and the capsid can ‘breathe,’ slightly changing its conformation. Sometimes, the genome is accidentally released, resulting in a viral dead end. Julie showed that bacterial glycans will lock the capsids into a conformation and prevent genome release from happening until the virus encounters a host cell.</p> <p dir="ltr">Julie is a proponent of clear communication, including with those working in similar fields, which she learned from her experience as a postdoctoral fellow. She and a postdoc in a different institution, Marco Vignuzzi, independently isolated a polio virus mutant that made fewer in genome replication. Both showed that the virus had a defect during mouse infection, indicating that the ability to introduce errors during genome replication is beneficial to viral fitness. Julie and Marco finally met at a viral evolution conference, after which they became close friends.</p> <p>Featured Quotes (in order of appearance):</p> <p dir="ltr">“I get more excited about a surprising result because it probably means there’s some interesting underlying biology that couldn’t be anticipated!”</p> <p dir="ltr">“We’ve done many gross experiments, so buyer beware; you’ve got to know what you’re getting into [with a fecal-oral pathogen].”</p> <p dir="ltr">“The infectious unit may be more complicated than we think!”</p> <p dir="ltr">“Communicating with people you know working on similar things can be mutually beneficial for everyone: you both get credit; nobody gets scooped. It’s win-win for sure.”</p> <p dir="ltr">“The truth is most enteric viral infections are self limiting in most healthy individuals so you’re much better off trudging through a day or two of gastrointestinal illness than blowing up your microbiota.”</p> <p>Links for this episode</p> <ul> <li><a href= "https://profiles.utsouthwestern.edu/profile/80210/julie-pfeiffer.html"> Julie Pfeiffer website at UT Southwestern Medical Center</a></li> <li>Back-to-back Science publications from <a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3519937/">Golovkina</a> and <a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222156/">Pfeiffer</a></li> <li>PLOS Pathogens: <a href= "http://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article?id=10.1371/journal.ppat.1006330"> The importance of model systems: Why we study a virus on the brink of global eradication</a></li> <li><a href= "https://www.grc.org/viruses-and-cells-conference/2019/">Viruses and Cells Gordon conference</a> (donate <a href= "https://ww2.grc.org/contributions/contribution.aspx?ID=12501">here</a>)<strong style="text-align: start; font-weight: normal;"><br /> </strong></li> <li><strong style="text-align: start; font-weight: normal;">HOM Tidbit: Michael Underwood’s <a href= "https://archive.org/stream/b21516728_0002#page/n103/mode/2up">A Treatise on the Diseases of Children</a></strong></li> </ul>
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083: Microbial communication via quorum sensing with Pete Greenberg
<p>Pete Greenberg tells how bacteria can communicate based on cell density, a phenomenon he helped name quorum sensing. He talks about therapeutics based on quorum-sensing discoveries, and how studying bacterial interactions can be used to test ecological principles like cooperation and social cheating.</p> <p>Julie's biggest takeaways:</p> <p>Quorum sensing can be likened to an old-fashioned smoking room, where a few cigar smokers don’t affect the air quality, but as more smokers enter the room, it becomes beneficial to the group to open the window: a changed behavior that benefits the group environment.</p> <p>Differentiating waste molecules from signaling molecules is important to define specific quorum sensing. The experimental evidence that shows that molecules serve as quorum sensing signals that allow bacteria to respond at high density comes from social engineering experiments to identify ‘cheaters.’</p> <p>Quorum sensing results in changes in gene expression that benefit the community but not necessarily individual cells. An example is antibiotics, which when made by a single cell aren’t at a high enough concentration to kill competitor microbes. As a group, all cells working together can produce a cloud of antibiotic that may be able to protect from competitors.</p> <p>The ability of microbes to receive or ‘eavesdrop’ on the signals produced may be cooperative, but is more likely competitive, giving the eavesdropper a competitive advantage by informing them about another species’ presence.</p> <p>If you knock out quorum sensing, you get abnormal biofilms, but it doesn’t ablate biofilms completely.</p> <p>Although a self-described disinterested high-school student, Greenberg signed up for a weekend field trip to get out of a test on a Friday. It was looking at animals in the intertidal bay of the Pacific Northwest that inspired him to be a biologist! Greenberg also credits his broad biology undergraduate training for preparing him to apply socioecology concepts to bacteria.</p> <p>Quorum sensing was originally called ‘auto induction.’ In the early 1990s, Greenberg was writing a minireview for the Journal of Bacteriology and wanted to think of a catchy title. As Greenberg remembers, coauthor Steve Winans explained the concept to his family, and his brother-in-law said “it’s like the bacteria need a quorum” - the birth of the term ‘quorum sensing.’</p> <p>Featured Quotes (in order of appearance):</p> <p>“So-called ‘cheaters’ don’t respond to the signal, they’ve lost the ability to respond to the signal. The product that’s useful for the common good any more. They don’t pay the cost of cooperation but they can benefit by the cooperative activity of everyone else in the community...there’s a fitness advantage for cheaters in this environment.”</p> <p>“It’s a real case of convergent evolution. It’s important that the bacteria can do this, and these two really distinct types of [gram-positive and gram-negative] bacteria have evolved completely different mechanisms to perform quorum sensing.”</p> <p>“I think of bacteria as a way to study what is called ‘Darwin’s dilemma.’ If a cheater emerges among a population, it will have a fitness advantage over the population of cooperators. It should take over the population and ultimately cause the tragedy of the commons, where there are too many cheaters and not enough cooperators and the whole system collapses. Darwin’s dilemma is: how is cooperation stabilized? We know it exists and it seems like it shouldn’t - we can use bacteria to get at the rules.”</p> <p>“I got interested in [quorum sensing] because it was so cool!”</p> <p>“I had this idea, as we began to unravel quorum sensing in these marine luminescent bacteria, that any idea in biology that’s a good idea will occur more than once - but I didn’t have any evidence of that. For 15 years, my lab and essentially one other lab, Mike Silverman’s lab, were the only labs working on this. It was really the early 90s when our group and other groups started to realie that lots of bacteria do this. It’s one of those fantastic oddesies. It’s luck - luck and hard work, I guess. Hard work by the people in my lab as I sit around as watch!”</p> <p>“It’s funny how a term can catch on and sort of crystallize a field! But somehow, it seemed to do that. I’ve gotten really into trying to think of catchy terms since then, and the latest one is ‘sociomicrobiology,’ which I introduced with Matt Parsek about 12 years ago and there’s a burgeoning field called sociomicrobiology. I’m trying to think of another term now, before I retire!”</p> <p>Links for this episode</p> <p> </p> <ul> <li dir="ltr"><a href= "https://depts.washington.edu/epglab/index.html">Pete Greenberg lab at the University of Washington</a></li> <li dir="ltr"><a href= "http://www.pnas.org/content/101/45/15830">Pete Greenberg 2004 PNAS bio</a></li> <li dir="ltr"><a href= "http://jb.asm.org/content/176/2/269?ijkey=a9a2945c85dc8e4ca7bc6cb0d0326b1ce3d60d9b&keytype2=tf_ipsecsha"> Journal of Bacteriology minireview: Quorum Sensing in Bacteria</a></li> <li dir="ltr"><a href="http://bit.ly/2s2BpyE">HOM: Woody Hastings memoriam</a></li> <li dir="ltr"><a href="http://bit.ly/2Lh9kwp">ASM Podcasts</a></li> </ul> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p><br /> Send your stories about our guests and/or your comments to jwolf@asmusa.org.</p>
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082: The struggle to study hepatitis C virus with Charlie Rice
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Charlie Rice gives the history of learning to grow hepatitis C virus in culture, from pitfalls to hurdles and successes along the 20-year journey. He also talks about yellow fever virus, its vaccine, and the importance of curiosity-driven research</span></p>
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081: Developing infectious disease diagnostics with Melissa Miller
<p dir="ltr">How are new diseases detected in a clinical microbiology lab? Melissa Miller talks about the time it takes to develop a test for a new disease (hint: it’s getting shorter). She also shares her definition of ‘point-of-care’ diagnostics and explains the major trends for clinical microbiology labs.</p> <p>Host: <a href= "index.php/podcasts/meet-the-microbiologist/item/6794" target= "_blank" rel="noopener">Julie Wolf</a> </p> <p>Subscribe (free) on <a href= "https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/meet-the-scientist/id289419806?mt=2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">iPhone</a>, <a href= "http://www.subscribeonandroid.com/meetthescientist.microbeworld.libsynpro.com/rss" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Android</a>, <a href= "http://meetthescientist.microbeworld.libsynpro.com/rss" target= "_blank" rel="noopener">RSS</a>, or by <a href= "http://eepurl.com/c4MKHb" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">email</a>. You can also listen on your mobile device with the <a href= "http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id337731458?mt=8" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ASM Podcast app</a>.</p> <p dir="ltr">Julie's biggest takeaways:</p> <ul> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr">Antibiograms are vital to understand the resistance characteristics of locally circulating disease strains. These help make empirical decisions for antibiotic therapy regimens before the susceptibility test results are available.</p> </li> </ul> <ul> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr">New diseases require new diagnostic tests. How to determine how well new tests work once they’re developed? Clinical microbiologists look to the sensitivity (how well does a test detect if a patient has a disease) and specificity (how often is the test negative if the patients doesn’t have it) of the test. Having access to positive controls (that is, samples from a patient known to have the disease) can prove difficult in some settings, such as in North Carolina, where no Zika patients were admitted while the Zika virus test was being developed.</p> </li> </ul> <ul> <li dir="ltr" style= "line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"> <p dir="ltr">When the HIV epidemic was beginning, it took several years after the HIV virus was identified to sequence its genome and use this for molecular testing. In 2002-2003, it took just over a month to get the SARS genome sequence for use in developing assays. It’s even quicker today; within a week, we can have sequences from viruses around the world.</p> </li> </ul> <ul> <li dir="ltr" style= "line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"> <p dir="ltr">Defining ‘point-of-care’ testing took an entire hour at a recent American Academy of Microbiology colloquium! Melissa’s take: It’s a test that can be done at or near to where the patient is.</p> </li> <li> <p dir="ltr">Point-of-care tests are exciting but can also pose challenges. A recent example is false-positive pertussis tests that were shown to be due to pertussis vaccine being administered nearby. Ensuring the tests are used safely and accurately will best serve healthcare workers and patients alike.</p> </li> <li> <p dir="ltr">Molecular diagnostics have two trends: one trend simplifies existing technologies into point-of-care tests. The other trend adds complexity, by applying next-generation sequencing techniques in a reproducible manner.</p> </li> </ul> <p>Featured Quotes (in order of appearance):</p> <p dir="ltr">“Laboratorians are often in the basement or in a setting where they aren’t visible to the healthcare team, but they’re very vital to taking care of the patient.”</p> <p> </p> <p dir="ltr">“When you’re using laboratory-developed tests, the way it works in one laboratory may be very different from how it works in another laboratory.”</p> <p dir="ltr"> </p> <p dir="ltr">“The ultimate goal [of point-of-care testing] is to get a result that’s actionable. We don’t need to do tests that aren’t going to result in a clinically actionable decision.”</p> <p> </p> <p dir="ltr">“In many ways, the technology is ahead of where our quality assurance protocols are.”</p> <p> </p> <p dir="ltr">“I think it’s going to be very important in going ahead that we continue to have laboratorians involved in developing these point-of-care programs and consulting to these sites, helping to make sure that there are policies and procedures that ensure quality results for their patients.”</p> <p> </p> <p dir="ltr"><strong style= "text-align: start; font-weight: normal;">“It’s one thing to do it in a research setting; we’ve collaborated with a number of folks using next generation sequencing. But to then move it to the clinical lab and have it be reproducible and have the quality at the level you need for a clinical lab is a completely different challenge.”</strong></p> <p>Links for this episode</p> <ul> <li dir="ltr"><a href= "https://www.med.unc.edu/pathology/faculty/biosketch-of-dr-miller">Melissa Miller University of North Carolina Website</a></li> <li dir="ltr"><a href= "https://www.med.unc.edu/ahs/clinical">Division of Clinical Laboratory Science at University of North Carolina</a></li> <li dir="ltr"><a href= "https://www.naacls.org/Find-a-Program.aspx">Searchable List of Clinical Laboratory Science Programs</a></li> <li dir="ltr"><a href="index.php/colloquium-reports">AAM Colloquium Report on Point-of-Care Testing</a></li> <li dir="ltr"><a href="index.php/about-cpep">CPEP Program</a></li> <li dir="ltr">Career Blog: <a href= "index.php/careers-blog/item/7101-tips-on-becoming-a-clinical-microbiology-laboratory-director"> Tips on becoming a clinical microbiology laboratory director</a></li> <li>HOM Tidbid: <a href= "http://www.ijidonline.com/article/S1201-9712%2805%2900178-5/fulltext"> Papagrigorakis 2006 International Journal of Infectious Diseases report</a><strong style= "text-align: start; font-weight: normal;"><br /></strong></li> <li><strong style="text-align: start; font-weight: normal;">HOM Tidbit: <a href= "http://www.ijidonline.com/article/S1201-9712(06)00053-1/fulltext">Shapiro reply to Papagrigorakis report</a></strong></li> </ul> <p>Send your stories about our guests and/or your comments to <a href= "mailto:jwolf@asmusa.org.">jwolf@asmusa.org.</a></p> <p> </p>
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080: Implementing One Health with Mathew Muturi
<p>Veterinarian and epidemiologist Mathew Muturi tells how a Rift Valley Fever outbreak led to implementation of One Health-based policies. Muturi talks about his One Health training and its applications for health and biopreparedness.</p> <p>Julie’s Biggest Takeaways:</p> <p>One Health</p> <p>Simple communication between experts helps facilitate implementation of one health in public systems. Sitting experts in human and animal health in the same office allows easier communication between these different health sectors.</p> <p>One Health policies involving close collaboration between animal and human healthcare workers were first implemented in Kenya in response to the threat of avian influenza, but were discontinued after the threat waned. Human cases of Rift Valley Fever, due to spillover from a livestock outbreak, led to the discovery that these collaborative policies could prevent other outbreaks as well, and the policies were reinstated.</p> <p>Zoonotic diseases can often be the most overlooked. Officials of countries where endemic diseases are present may have preparedness plans for serious cases but may overlook something endemic like brucellosis.</p> <p>There are 42 subtribes in Kenya, including diverse languages, religions, and beliefs. Public health interventions do their best to align the local beliefs of the people to minimize risk of pathogen exposure.</p> <p><br /> Featured Quotes:</p> <p>“One health is not a new concept; it’s an old concept that explains the health of humans, animals, and the environment is interconnected. It’s a concept that plays out in everyday life.”</p> <p>“One of the reasons One Health has been able to be successful in Kenya, and that I suggest to other countries wishing to implement this program, is the sitting together, talking together. Make sure that you work together, see each other - I don’t think communication works well enough if it’s on an ad hoc basis. The thing that has worked for us is sitting together.”</p> <p>“The most important aspect of One Health is the fact that that it’s impossible to control diseases that come from animals only by focusing on humans. It’s like trying to concentrate on putting out fires without ascertaining where the fires are coming from.”</p> <p>“Endemic diseases, despite the fact that they’re ever-present, are often the most ignored.”</p> <p>“A lot of the risk practices are cultural, and cultural change is very slow.”</p> <p>“The value of One Health is much more than the investment required to put into it. It’s one of the few things I’ve seen actually work in implementation of disease control strategies, in surveillance and in general disease control. It’s worked for Kenya and I believe it can work for all other countries.”</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Links for the episode:</strong></p> <p><a href="http://zdukenya.org/"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Republic of Kenya Zoonotic Disease Unit</span></a></p> <p><br /> <a href= "http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0161576"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Prioritization of Zoonotic Diseases in Kenya, 2015.</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Plos One</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">.</span></a></p>
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079: Comparative Bacterial Genomics with Dave Rasko
<p dir="ltr">Dave Rasko uses comparative bacterial genomics to find DNA sequences that influence virulence or antibiotic resistance. Dave talks about his studies of E. coli, Acinetobacter baumanii, and B. anthracis, and the state of bacterial genomics past, present, and future.</p> <p><strong>Host:</strong> <a href= "index.php/podcasts/meet-the-microbiologist/item/6794" target= "_blank" rel="noopener">Julie Wolf</a></p> <p>Subscribe (free) on <a href= "https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/meet-the-scientist/id289419806?mt=2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">iPhone</a>, <a href= "http://www.subscribeonandroid.com/meetthescientist.microbeworld.libsynpro.com/rss" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Android</a>, <a href= "http://meetthescientist.microbeworld.libsynpro.com/rss" target= "_blank" rel="noopener">RSS</a>, or by <a href= "http://eepurl.com/c4MKHb" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">email</a>. You can also listen on your mobile device with the <a href= "http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id337731458?mt=8" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ASM Podcast app</a>.</p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>Julie's biggest takeaways:</strong></p> <ul> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr">Genome sequencing speed has significantly increased: The first bacterial genome sequenced, Haemophilus influenzae, took about 10 years to complete. The first organism with two sequenced genomes was Helicobacter pylori, published in 1999, and the first organism with three published genomes was Escherichia coli. Rasko’s initial project at TIGR to sequence 11 E. coli genomes took about 2 years. Today, Rasko’s lab can sequence 500 genomes in about five days.</p> <p dir="ltr"> </p> </li> </ul> <ul> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr">In E. coli, up to half of the genome can differ between two strains. The core genome is the collection of genes that will be shared among all isolates of a particular species. Core gene conservation varies among species and is important to consider in analyses for one’s species of interest.</p> <p dir="ltr"> </p> </li> </ul> <ul> <li dir="ltr" style= "line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"> <p dir="ltr">Working on the Amerithrax investigation was unlike many other scientific inquiries for many reasons, including that the Federal Bureau of Investigation only gave the scientists involved the information pieces necessary to conduct their studies. Rasko and collaborators sequenced the genomes of spores within the samples, and found that the morphology of the colonies that grew were associated with genetic differences between the spores within the sample, linking phenotype and genotype.</p> <p dir="ltr"> </p> </li> <li dir="ltr" style= "line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"> <p dir="ltr">While comparative genomics can provide a lot of information, there are some phenomena that will always require further study. For example, Rasko is researching isolates of A. baumanii and Klebiella pneumoniae that quickly develop drug resistance when grown in sub-inhibitory drug concentrations. The genomic sequences of resistant or susceptible strains show no difference in DNA sequence, suggesting the phenotype is due to transcriptional changes.</p> </li> </ul> <p><style="background-color: initial; font-size: 16.016px;">Featured Quotes <strong>(in order of appearance)</strong></p> <p dir="ltr">“Genomics is fun in that we can hypothesize all day long, every day. It’s really the start of a lot of very very hard work figuring out why.”</p> <p dir="ltr">“There’s a lot of DNA pieces that we don’t fully understand how they moved, where they moved, where they came from. In some cases, there’s evidence to say where they came from; in terms of G-C content and coding biases, we can make some assumptions, but in the grand scheme of things, we have no idea where they’re coming from! In some cases, we’ll see them dominant throughout a lineage, and in some cases we’ll see them in sporadic isolates around the entire phylogenetic tree. . .We all thought genomics was going to solve so many problems, and it’s really just made it more difficult!”</p> <p dir="ltr">“Plasmids tend to be mobile and exchangeable, and the pieces tend to be - I tend to think of them as legos, in the fact that you can put a plasmid together in a bunch of different ways.”</p> <p dir="ltr">“I think a lot of conventional PCR fails and people assume that it’s because it’s negative, and not necessarily that it fails because of diversity.”</p> <p dir="ltr">“Many microbiologists think of that colony on a plate as a clone. I force the people in my group to think about it a little differently, because it’s really what I like to call ‘genome space’. They’re not all the same; bacteria are constantly evolving. There’s changes all the time, some of them are positive, some of the are negative, the negative ones get lost, the positive ones unusually become dominant - and then there’s lots of neutral changes that just kind of hang out.”</p> <p dir="ltr">“Genomes really normalized everything. Before that, there were certain labs that could clone and there were certain labs that could sequence, and it was a little bit restrictive to the elite labs who had those resources. Now with the genome sequences out there, everyone was starting from the same place.”</p> <p>“You really have to understand your organism to make the bioinformatics work.”</p> <p><strong>Links for this episode</strong></p> <ul> <li dir="ltr"><a href= "http://www.igs.umaryland.edu/labs/rasko/people/">Rasko lab at the University of Maryland</a></li> <li dir="ltr"><a href= "https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/amerithrax-or-anthrax-investigation"> FBI summary of Amerithrax investigation</a></li> <li dir="ltr"><a href= "http://www.pnas.org/content/108/12/5027">2011 PNAS report on B. anthracis comparative genomics</a></li> <li><a href= "http://www.cell.com/trends/microbiology/abstract/S0966-842X(04)00051-4"> Bugs N the ‘hood</a></li> <li><strong><style="font-weight: normal;">HOM Tidbit: Stanley Falkow gives both <a href="http://bit.ly/2GBLE69">video history</a> and <a href="http://bit.ly/2ut5SKL">written history</a> of plasmid biology</strong></li> <li><strong><style="font-weight: normal;">Save on <a href= "http://asm.org/microbe">Microbe 2018</a>, use code: asmpod</strong></li> </ul> <p>Send your stories about our guests and/or your comments to <a href= "mailto:jwolf@asmusa.org.">jwolf@asmusa.org.</a></p>
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078: Tuberculosis treatment and mycobacterial genetics with Bill Jacobs
<p>Bill Jacobs talks about developing mycobacterial genetic tools and using them to discover ways to shorten TB treatment. He also talks about the SEA-PHAGES program that allows high-school students to participate in phage discovery.</p> <p>Host: <a href= "index.php/podcasts/meet-the-microbiologist/item/6794" target= "_blank" rel="noopener">Julie Wolf</a></p> <p>Subscribe (free) on <a href= "https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/meet-the-scientist/id289419806?mt=2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">iPhone</a>, <a href= "http://www.subscribeonandroid.com/meetthescientist.microbeworld.libsynpro.com/rss" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Android</a>, <a href= "http://meetthescientist.microbeworld.libsynpro.com/rss" target= "_blank" rel="noopener">RSS</a>, or by <a href= "http://eepurl.com/c4MKHb" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">email</a>. You can also listen on your mobile device with the <a href= "http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id337731458?mt=8" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ASM Podcast app</a>.</p> <p dir="ltr">Julie's biggest takeaways:</p> <ul> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr">The challenges of working with an easily aerosolized bacterium are aided by complementary studies on a noninfectious relative. M. smegmatus doesn’t colonize mammals and grows slower, giving researchers the opportunity to acclimate themselves to working with mycobacterial cultures.</p> </li> </ul> <ul> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr">Jacobs was the first scientist to introduce DNA into M. tuberculosis using a phasmid - part plasmid, part mycobacterial phage. The first phage came from Jacobs’ dirt yard in the Bronx, so he named it BxB1 for the Bronx Bomber. Another phage, TM4, became the workhorse phasmid when Jacobs cloned an E. coli cosmid sequence into a nonessential part of the phage genome. It replicates in E. coli as a plasmid but becomes a phage inside Mycobacteria, facilitating manipulation. The shuttle phasmids allowed transposon delivery to make transposon libraries, and the creation of gene knockouts.</p> </li> </ul> <ul> <li dir="ltr" style= "line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"> <p dir="ltr">To this day, we use Ziehl-Neelsen staining to differentiate acid-fast mycobacteria from gram-positive or gram-negative bacteria - the mycolic acids on the outer part of the envelope make up some of the longest microbial lipid chains. But mycobacteria can regulate its acid-fast positive or negative status; the acid-fast negative organisms are a persistent population that are often ignored inside of patients. 99.99% of M. tuberculosis bacteria are not persistent, but the last 0.1% have entered into a persistent state expressing many stress proteins that help them become refractory to killing.</p> </li> <li dir="ltr" style= "line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"> <p dir="ltr">A normal course of antibiotic chemotherapy for patients is six months. If infected with a strain resistant to the two frontline drugs, that time goes up to two years. The problem is even greater in extremely multidrug resistant (XDR) strains.</p> </li> <li> <p dir="ltr">What we really need is a way to understand persistence and a way to shorten chemotherapy. That’s why were were absolutely amazed when we discovered that cysteine with isoniazid completely sterilizes Mtb cultures in vitro and in vivo! The culture is sterilized because the bacteria can’t form persisters. Vitamin C co-treatment with antibiotics may lead to a shortened course of therapy for TB treatment.</p> </li> <li> <p dir="ltr">Neutralizing antibodies to the herpesvirus glycoprotein have been the dogma for protecting from herpes. Jacobs and his colleagues discovered that a vaccine based on a glycoprotein-knockout virus confers sterilizing immunity not through neutralizing antibodies but through antibody-dependent cell cytoxicity (ADCC). This ADCC response may also be important to develop a more effective TB vaccine.</p> <p dir="ltr"> </p> </li> </ul> <p>Featured Quotes (in order of appearance):</p> <p dir="ltr">“You’ll never know how bad your aseptic technique is until you start working with tuberculosis!”</p> <p dir="ltr">“I think part of the reason I had the opportunity to develop genetics for TB - it’s not like it wasn’t important to do - but a lot of people were disappointed when working with the organism.”</p> <p dir="ltr">“We’re about to take TB genetics to where yeast genetics is.”</p> <p dir="ltr">“One of the tubicle bacilli’s greatest powers or one of its most important phenotypes is that it has the ability to persist, which means it has the ability to tolerate killing effectors, either killing by the immune system or killing by bactericidal drugs.”</p> <p dir="ltr">“I took students to the Bronx Zoo, and over by the zebra pen, I sniffed and said ‘I smell a phage!’ In fact, that’s not crazy - anyone who plants flowers knows what good soil smells like, and in the good soil, you’re smelling the bacteria that live in the soil, the Streptomyces and Mycobacteria. I reached down and grabbed that dirt, and when we went back to work we isolated BxE1.”</p> <p dir="ltr">“I’ve never met a phage I wasn’t excited about!”</p> <p dir="ltr">“I now believe that most pathogens do not ‘want’ ADCC antibodies to be made, and they have immune evasion strategies where they skew the immune response to get the wrong antibodies. Since the time we published our first paper, numerous groups have shown that correlates of protection for HIV, for influenza, and for Zika, turn out to be ADCC antibodies.”</p> <p dir="ltr">“Genetics is the mathematics of biology!”</p> <p> </p> <p>Links for this episode</p> <ul> <li dir="ltr"><a href="http://williamrjacobs.org/#about">Bill Jacobs lab site</a></li> <li dir="ltr"><a href= "https://www.nytimes.com/1993/05/07/us/glow-of-firefly-is-used-in-new-test-to-detect-tb.html"> NYTimes story on 1993 rapid diagnostic test using luciferase</a></li> <li dir="ltr"><a href= "http://aac.asm.org/cgi/reprint/62/3/e02165-17?ijkey=FwzFSLmZ0IKLI&keytype=ref&siteid=asmjournals"> AACJournal: Vitamin C potentiates the killing of Mycobacterium tuberculosis by the first-line tuberculosis drugs isoniazid and rifampicin in mice</a></li> <li dir="ltr"><a href= "http://www.cell.com/action/showFullTextImages?pii=S0092-8674%2803%2900233-2"> Cell: Origins of highly mosaic mycobacteriophage genomes</a></li> <li dir="ltr"><a href="https://seaphages.org/">SEA-PHAGES program</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25919952">eLife: Whole genome comparison of a large collection of mycobacteriophages reveals a continuum of phage genetic diversity</a></li> <li><strong style="font-weight: normal;"><a href= "http://mbio.asm.org/content/7/5/e01023-16.long">mBio: Dual-reported mycobacteriophages (Φ2DRMs) reveal preexisting Mycobacterium tuberculosis persistent cells in human sputum</a></strong></li> <li><strong style="font-weight: normal;"><a href= "https://mwaudio.s3.amazonaws.com/MTM/MTM078/Tuberculosis%20-%20Mar%2014%202018%20-%207-49%20PM.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Tuberculosis - Its cause, cure and prevention [1914] (pdf)</a></strong></li> </ul> <p> </p> <p>Send your stories about our guests and/or your comments to <a href= "mailto:jwolf@asmusa.org.">jwolf@asmusa.org.</a></p> <p> </p>
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077: Influenza, politics, and scientific credibility with Ilaria Capua
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Ilaria Capua talks about running an internationally renowned animal influenza lab, and her time spent in the Italian Parliament. Accused of virus trafficking as part of a national scandal, she has since cleared her name and speaks here about the importance of scientific credibility and reputation.</span></p>
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076: Evolution of bacterial biofilm populations with Vaughn Cooper
<p>Most bacteria live a sedentary lifestyle in community structures called biofilms. Vaughn Cooper tells us what bacterial biofilms are, why biofilms differ from test tube environments, and how long-term evolution experiments combined with population genomics are teaching us how bacteria really work. He also discusses using hands-on bacterial evolution activities to introduce high schoolers to future STEM possibilities.</p> <p><strong>Host:</strong> <a href= "index.php/podcasts/meet-the-microbiologist/item/6794" target= "_blank" rel="noopener">Julie Wolf</a></p> <p>Subscribe (free) on <a href= "https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/meet-the-scientist/id289419806?mt=2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">iPhone</a>, <a href= "http://www.subscribeonandroid.com/meetthescientist.microbeworld.libsynpro.com/rss" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Android</a>, <a href= "http://meetthescientist.microbeworld.libsynpro.com/rss" target= "_blank" rel="noopener">RSS</a>, or by <a href= "http://eepurl.com/c4MKHb" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">email</a>. You can also listen on your mobile device with the <a href= "http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id337731458?mt=8" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ASM Podcast app</a>.</p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>Julie's biggest takeaways:</strong></p> <ul> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr">Cells in a biofilm shift to dedicate their resources to protection rather than reproduction. This allows biofilms to be innately more resistant to antibiotics than those growing in planktonic culture.</p> </li> </ul> <ul> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr">One of the least-understood parts of a biofilm cycle is the dispersal stage. What cues or signals influence some biofilm-embedded cells to leave? This is a vital part of biofilm formation, since these dispersal cells can eventually attach to a new surface and restart the process of forming a biofilm.</p> </li> </ul> <ul> <li dir="ltr" style= "line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"> <p dir="ltr">The bead system of biofilm propagation allows Vaughn and his colleagues to study the long-term evolution of biofilms. This system, combined with population genomics, allows the study of all the different genetic changes within the population.</p> </li> </ul> <ul> <li dir="ltr" style= "line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"> <p dir="ltr">Traditional genetic screens compare libraries of mutants to see which survive under different conditions. Rather than on libraries of mutant strains, evolution works on random mutants that arise naturally. The accessibility of sequencing technologies has changed the way scientists study evolution, as now the mutations can be found as they form, rather than being seeded into the initial mutant library screen.</p> </li> <li> <p dir="ltr">High schoolers using nonpathogenic bacteria can study evolution in action by developing new colony morphologies. Work with high schoolers and their teachers has shown students who do hands-on learning do better on standardized tests and that girls, especially, express higher interest in technology and an interest in STEM careers after a 1-2 week project.</p> </li> </ul> <p><strong style= "background-color: initial; font-size: 16.016px;">Featured Quotes (in order of appearance)</strong></p> <p dir="ltr">“From a perspective of an ecologist and evolutionary biologist, this is what captivated me about biofilms: that instantly in the process of forming a biofilm, the environment becomes heterogeneous. Different cells that are clone mates are experiencing different selective pressures.”</p> <p dir="ltr">“The hypothesis that we’ve been testing for the last 15 years or so is that biofilms in and of themselves may generate ecological and heritable evolutionary diversity in really short periods of time.”</p> <p dir="ltr">"In describing the wrinkled Pseudomonas colonies that can stem from biofilm cells: “I think they look like hydrangeas, and some look more like doilies. I think they’re captivating and pretty charismatic as far as microbes go.”</p> <p dir="ltr">“The average bacteria picked from any environment does an unbelieveably good job of protecting its genetic material. The per-cell mutation rate, per-genome, per-generation rate is about 1 in 1000 cells. So a bacterial cell needs to divide about 1000 times to create a single mutant. That means that mutations are actually relatively scarce, but bacterial populations are extraordinarily immense. If you grow a single cell to 108 cells, you’ve got about 105 new mutations. That’s a pretty large number. Some of them, maybe a handful, maybe 1/100 of those 105 mutations, which would be about 1000, would be beneficial. Then selection will act on them, and the better ones will rise more quickly because they make more progeny. And that’s evolution in action!”</p> <p dir="ltr">“Increasingly, we’re using evolution to teach us about how the organism works.”</p> <p dir="ltr">“I’m not saving lives with any of our studies on microbes in biofilm-associated infections just yet. We are seeing how they change in these infection and how they become more drug resistant. That’s great, and I think that’s a valuable contribution. But when we can encourage hundreds of high schoolers to really consider careers in the life sciences or mathematics or engineering, we’re changing lives.”</p> <p><strong>Links for this episode</strong></p> <ul> <li dir="ltr"><a href= "http://www.mmg.pitt.edu/person/vaughn-s-cooper" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Vaughn Cooper University of Pittsburgh website</a></li> <li dir="ltr"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQr8ldEeO04" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Rich Lenski Long-Term Evolution Experiment ASM video</a></li> <li dir="ltr"><a href= "http://jb.asm.org/content/198/20.cover-expansion" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Journal of Bacteriology cover featuring Pseudomonas colonies</a></li> <li dir="ltr"><a href="http://jb.asm.org/content/198/19/2608" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Journal of Bacteriology report on the evolution of Pseudomonas biofilm diversity</a></li> <li dir="ltr"><a href= "http://jb.asm.org/content/194/24/6706.full.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Journal of Bacteriology tribute to Bill Costerton</a></li> <li dir="ltr"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_DWNFFgHbE" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bill Costerton YouTube interview</a></li> </ul> <p>Send your stories about our guests and/or your comments to <a href= "mailto:jwolf@asmusa.org.">jwolf@asmusa.org.</a></p> <p> </p>
Listen:
075: Working with the Microbes in our Drinking and Waste Water with Marylynn Yates
<p dir="ltr">Marylynn Yates discusses how the urban water cycle and its importance in eliminating waterborne pathogens. She describes the types of microbes that can survive in water and how testing for different microbial types can affect interpretation of contamination levels.</p> <p><strong>Host:</strong> <a href= "index.php/podcasts/meet-the-microbiologist/item/6794" target= "_blank" rel="noopener">Julie Wolf</a></p> <p>Subscribe (free) on <a href= "https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/meet-the-scientist/id289419806?mt=2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">iPhone</a>, <a href= "http://www.subscribeonandroid.com/meetthescientist.microbeworld.libsynpro.com/rss" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Android</a>, <a href= "http://meetthescientist.microbeworld.libsynpro.com/rss" target= "_blank" rel="noopener">RSS</a>, or by <a href= "http://eepurl.com/c4MKHb" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">email</a>. You can also listen on your mobile device with the <a href= "http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id337731458?mt=8" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ASM Podcast app</a>.</p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>Julie's biggest takeaways:</strong></p> <ul> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr">Worldwide, water is a large source of infectious disease. Billions of people have no access to safe water and this culminates in 1.5 billion cases of diarrhea and 1.5 million deaths from contaminated water annually.</p> </li> </ul> <ul> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr">The urban water cycle takes water from lakes or the ground for its first treatment before delivery to our homes. Water leaving our homes as waste water goes to a second facility where water is given a different set of treatments to eliminate disease-causing microbes before the water is returned to lakes or rivers. Different treatment facilities are needed because the concentration of contaminants is different in water before and after use in our homes.</p> </li> </ul> <ul> <li dir="ltr" style= "line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"> <p dir="ltr">Crystal clear spring water can be deceiving, but can carry disease-causing microbes. Animals can carry protozoans such as Giardia and Cryptosporidium, which also cause disease in people. This is why treating water, even with a simple boiling procedure, is important when backpacking or camping.</p> </li> </ul> <ul> <li dir="ltr" style= "line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"> <p dir="ltr">Bacterial sentinels such as Escherichia coli can be used to measure potential bacterial pathogen presence, but they don’t measure pathogenic protozoans or viruses. This is in part because the treatment necessary to eliminate bacteria is different than that necessary to eliminate protozoans and viruses. Some scientists argue that bacteriophage are a better measure of potential pathogenic virus present, though no regulations require phage monitoring. Others argue that detection of a spore-forming bacteria, such as Clostridium perfringens, would better predict protozoan presence.</p> </li> </ul> <p> </p> <p><strong style= "background-color: initial; font-size: 16.016px;">Featured Quotes (in order of appearance)</strong>:</p> <p dir="ltr">“Because there is no new water on Earth, we need to make sure that after we use water that we treat it in a way so that when it’s used again as drinking water, it’s as clean as it can possibly be.”</p> <p dir="ltr">“Some viruses are very hardy and can survive for a long time (outside their host cell). They don’t need nutrients like bacteria do, so they just sit there - almost like a chemical contaminant.”</p> <p dir="ltr">“Some of these viruses, such as hepatitis A virus or norovirus, can survive for a long time in the environment. When I say ‘quite a long time’, I mean for weeks or months, or in the case of hepatitis A, there was one report that it lasted up to a couple of years.”</p> <p dir="ltr">“It’s that real-world application that has kept me going for all these years, knowing that I can have an impact on public health in my own, tiny way.”<br /> </p> <p><strong>Links for this episode</strong></p> <ul> <li dir="ltr"><a href= "https://envisci.ucr.edu/faculty/yates.html">Marylynn Yates website at UCR</a></li> <li dir="ltr"><a href= "https://promise.ucr.edu/profile-policy-yates.html">Marylynn Yate interview with UCR</a></li> <li dir="ltr"><a href= "index.php/general-science-blog/item/94-is-it-safe-to-go-into-the-water-standardizing-molecular-methods-for-water-safety-surveillance"> mBiosphere blog post on developing water safety testing with the EPA</a></li> <li dir="ltr"><a href= "index.php/mbiosphere/item/381-toward-development-of-microarrays-to-test-water-safety"> mBiosphere blog post on developing new technologies for water safety testing</a></li> <li dir="ltr"><a href= "http://archive.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/milwaukee-marks-20-years-since-cryptosporidium-outbreak-099dio5-201783191.html"> Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal Sentinel 20th Anniversary of Cryptosporidiosis Outbreak</a></li> <li dir="ltr"><a href= "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebjG6N7JIQs">Monsters Inside Me: Cryptosporidiosis</a></li> </ul> <p> </p> <p>Send your stories about our guests and/or your comments to <a href= "mailto:jwolf@asmusa.org.">jwolf@asmusa.org.</a></p>
Listen:
074: Treating Ebola in America and Fecal Transfers with Colleen Kraft
<p dir="ltr">Colleen Kraft talks about treating Americans who became sick with Ebola during the west African outbreak and were evacuated to her hospital for treatment. In the second half, Kraft talks about her experience performing fecal transfers, and explains why she sees the gut microflora like a garden.</p> <p><strong>Host:</strong> <a href= "index.php/podcasts/meet-the-microbiologist/item/6794" target= "_blank" rel="noopener">Julie Wolf</a></p> <p>Subscribe (free) on <a href= "https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/meet-the-scientist/id289419806?mt=2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">iPhone</a>, <a href= "http://www.subscribeonandroid.com/meetthescientist.microbeworld.libsynpro.com/rss" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Android</a>, <a href= "http://meetthescientist.microbeworld.libsynpro.com/rss" target= "_blank" rel="noopener">RSS</a>, or by <a href= "http://eepurl.com/c4MKHb" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">email</a>. You can also listen on your mobile device with the <a href= "http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id337731458?mt=8" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ASM Podcast app</a>.</p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>Julie's biggest takeaways:</strong></p> <ul> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr"><strong style="font-weight: normal;">The patient conditions couldn’t be more different between the Liberian care centers and Emory University. The nursing ratio, access to both basic and experimental medicines, and even environmental conditions such as air conditioning created drastically different healthcare experiences between the two.</strong></p> </li> </ul> <ul> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr">While Ebola is a deadly disease, the symptoms such as headache, fever, and diarrhea are much more common than the bloody hemorrhaging often described. Patients can lose up to 10 liters of fluid each day!</p> </li> </ul> <ul> <li dir="ltr" style= "line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"> <p dir="ltr">Fecal microbiota transfer is a more appropriate name than transplant; new microbes overlaid on top of the dysbiotic flora will reshape the microbiota already present.</p> </li> </ul> <ul> <li dir="ltr" style= "line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"> <p dir="ltr">While FMT is currently used only to treat <em>C. difficile</em> (aka <em>C. diff</em>), forthcoming studies will determine if FMT can decrease risk of an antibiotic-resistant infection by displacing resistant bacteria.</p> </li> </ul> <p><strong style= "background-color: initial; font-size: 16.016px;">Featured Quotes(in order of appearance)</strong></p> <p dir="ltr">“Ebola virus disease is much more mundane than all of the novels you might read. It’s really a sepsis syndrome with a spectrum of that sepsis. Part of sepsis can be abnormal coagulation factors and low platelets, and so those bleeding complications go along with that sepsis syndrome.”</p> <p dir="ltr">“It sounds really mundane, but supportive care is really the most important thing for these patients. When that can occur, people can recover.”</p> <p dir="ltr">“The body doesn’t really like Ebola. One patient was encephalopathic, had kidney failure, liver failure, had some bleeding. Once the viral load was gone, all those things uprighted! It was like a capsized ship that uprighted.”</p> <p dir="ltr">“I really view our guts like gardens. There are good fruits and vegetables when our gardens are in homeostasis. Once we use antibiotics, it kills the good fruits and vegetables of the garden and <em>C. diff</em> grows up like a weed. All we’re doing [when we treat <em>C. diff</em>] is giving weed killer but we’re not replanting that garden.”</p> <p dir="ltr">“I’m somebody who thinks after every antibiotic treatment for anything that we do, we should be giving people some sort of item to enrich or restore their microbiome.”</p> <p dir="ltr">“The most exciting thing I can think of is to bring cutting-edge research and contributing to people being cured by these methods.”<br /> </p> <p><strong>Links for this episode</strong></p> <ul> <li dir="ltr"><a href= "http://pathology.emory.edu/AdminFacultyMember.cfm?Name_seq=1676">Colleen Kraft Emory website</a></li> <li dir="ltr"><a href= "https://www.amazon.com/Band-Played-Politics-Epidemic-20th-Anniversary/dp/0312374631/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1515711303&sr=1-1&keywords=and+the+band+played+on"> And the Band played on</a></li> <li dir="ltr"><a href= "https://www.amazon.com/Level-Hunters-Tracking-Deadliest-Viruses/dp/1454916656/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1515711277&sr=1-1&keywords=virus+hunters+of+the+cdc"> Virus Hunters of the CDC</a></li> <li dir="ltr"><a href= "https://www.google.com/search?q=hot+zone+book&rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS738US738&oq=hot+zone+book&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.4477j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8"> The Hot Zone</a></li> <li dir="ltr"><a href="https://netec.org/">NETEC</a></li> <li dir="ltr"><a href="http://bit.ly/2D2Gtuh">Clinical Virology Symposium</a></li> </ul> <p>Send your stories about our guests and/or your comments to <a href= "mailto:jwolf@asmusa.org.">jwolf@asmusa.org.</a></p> <p> </p>
Listen:
073: Biological sex and influenza with Sabra Klein
<p>Sabra Klein addresses the question: how does biological sex influence influenza infection and vaccination? She explains her findings on inflammation differences between males and females, and how these differences can affect the outcome of disease. Klein also discusses her advocacy for inclusion of biological sex in method reporting as a means to improve scientific rigor.</p> <p>Host: <a href= "index.php/podcasts/meet-the-microbiologist/item/6794" target= "_blank" rel="noopener">Julie Wolf</a></p> <p>Subscribe (free) on <a href= "https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/meet-the-scientist/id289419806?mt=2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">iPhone</a>, <a href= "http://www.subscribeonandroid.com/meetthescientist.microbeworld.libsynpro.com/rss" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Android</a>, <a href= "http://meetthescientist.microbeworld.libsynpro.com/rss" target= "_blank" rel="noopener">RSS</a>, or by <a href= "http://eepurl.com/c4MKHb" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">email</a>. You can also listen on your mobile device with the <a href= "http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id337731458?mt=8" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ASM Podcast app</a>.</p> <p dir="ltr">Julie's biggest takeaways:</p> <ul> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr">Information from the 1918 influenza pandemic suggested males died at a higher rate than females, which could be due to a gender fator or a biological factor. In 1918, men lived in close quarters of military barracks while women didn’t, representing a cultural difference of gender norms (women were exempted from military duty). But males are more susceptible to secondary bacterial infections that often accompany flu, which may represent a biological difference in infection outcome. In Klein’s studies, female mice suffer influenza more severely than males. Women who contracted the H1N1 flu epidemic in 2009 were more likely to be hospitalized with severe influenza than men. These data have yet to be aligned and leave many variables yet to explore!</p> </li> </ul> <ul> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr">Influenza infection disrupts the female menstrual cycle, causing lowered estrogen and progesterone levels. Providing exogenous progesterone can dampen inflammation and stimulate repair mechanisms needed to fix the damaged lung tissue. This type of host treatment is less likely to lead to the evolution of resistance than using antiviral compounds.</p> </li> </ul> <ul> <li dir="ltr" style= "line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"> <p dir="ltr">Females and males respond differently to vaccination; females mount a higher antibody response and have greater cross-protection than males.</p> </li> </ul> <ul> <li dir="ltr" style= "line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"> <p dir="ltr">Many diseases in addition to influenza show these sex-specific differences. The sex differences observed are specific to age; with older age, the differences are lost.</p> </li> <li dir="ltr" style= "line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"> <p dir="ltr">In several other countries, epidemiological and clinical data are analyzed for differences between sexes. With greater awareness, the United States may incorporate this practice too.</p> <p dir="ltr"> </p> </li> </ul> <p>Featured Quotes (in order of appearance):</p> <p dir="ltr">“Both genes as well as the hormones define the biological construct of sex.”</p> <p dir="ltr">“There’s an ample amount of data that suggest men are less likely to wash their hands than women. We all know handwashing is probably one of the best ways to avoid contact with viruses - really anything infectious. We always have to question if we do things that influence our exposure; but in our mice studies, we can control their exposure.”</p> <p dir="ltr">“We really have a love-hate relationship with inflammation. We need it to recognize the presence of the virus, but then we need it to dissipate. Our data suggest hormones are integral to regulating inflammation and the repair following inflammation.”</p> <p dir="ltr">“The immune responses to the influenza vaccine - and this extends to many vaccines - are often higher in females as compared with males. This has been shown in humans as well as animal models.”</p> <p dir="ltr">“I don’t know that I think that man flu is real. I think a lot can depend on both your age as well as your vaccine status that can influence whether you’re going to land in the hospital with severe influenza. Much like we were talking about with individuals who don’t have a vaccine, such as during a pandemic, females may be suffering a bit more, but once vaccinated females seem to do better than males. There are some nuances we shouldn’t lose sight of.”<br /> </p> <p>Links for this episode</p> <ul> <li dir="ltr"><a href= "https://www.jhsph.edu/faculty/directory/profile/1038/sabra-l-klein" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Sabra Klein website</a></li> <li dir="ltr"><a href= "http://cmm.jhmi.edu/index.php/cmm-faculty/sabra-l-klein-phd/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Klein speaking on heart disease differences in men and women</a></li> <li dir="ltr">Klein editorial in mBio: <a href= "https://newsdesk.si.edu/releases/new-smithsonian-exhibition-explores-pandemics-and-emerging-infectious-diseases" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Sex reporting in microbiological and immunological research</a></li> <li dir="ltr"><a href= "https://newsdesk.si.edu/releases/new-smithsonian-exhibition-explores-pandemics-and-emerging-infectious-diseases" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Smithsonian exhibit notification</a></li> <li>HOM Tidbit: Smithsonian article: <a href= "https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/journal-plague-year-180965222/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">How the horrific 1918 flu spread across America</a><strong style= "font-weight: normal;"><br /></strong></li> <li><strong style="font-weight: normal;">HOM Tidbit: Aeon article: <a href="http://bit.ly/2CMdEzR">Who names diseases?</a></strong></li> </ul> <p>Send your stories about our guests and/or your comments to <a href= "mailto:jwolf@asmusa.org.">jwolf@asmusa.org.</a></p>
Listen:
072: Microbial diversity of natural ecosystems with Jennifer Martiny
<p dir="ltr"><a href="http://jmartiny.bio.uci.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Jennifer Martiny</a> describes the incredible microbial biodiversity of natural ecosystems such as soils and waterways. She explains how to add a bit of control in experiments with so many variables, and why categorizing microbial types is important for quantifying patterns.</p> <p><strong>Host:</strong> <a href= "index.php/podcasts/meet-the-microbiologist/item/6794" target= "_blank" rel="noopener">Julie Wolf</a></p> <p>Subscribe (free) on <a href= "https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/meet-the-scientist/id289419806?mt=2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">iPhone</a>, <a href= "http://www.subscribeonandroid.com/meetthescientist.microbeworld.libsynpro.com/rss" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Android</a>, <a href= "http://meetthescientist.microbeworld.libsynpro.com/rss" target= "_blank" rel="noopener">RSS</a>, or by <a href= "http://eepurl.com/c4MKHb" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">email</a>. You can also listen on your mobile device with the <a href= "http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id337731458?mt=8" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ASM Podcast app</a>.</p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>Julie's biggest takeaways:</strong></p> <ul> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr">Studying microbial community functions in their natural environment are harder to understand, but help us to parse the complexity of the natural world, in part because these experiments also include local flora and fauna that are often omitted in the controlled lab environment. Microbial cages - an actual physical barrier that contains a soil-based community - can help to disentangle the effects of the microbial community from those of the surrounding environment by adding a level of control by limiting interaction of microbes inside the nylon mesh cage with those outside of it.</p> </li> </ul> <ul> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr">Are microbial functions redundant? It depends on what function you look at - respiration is a very common function, so it’s less likely to be affected by a change in microbiome composition. Other functions, such as degrading particular compounds, may have a stronger relationship between the microbes present and those functions.</p> </li> </ul> <ul> <li dir="ltr" style= "line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"> <p dir="ltr">Microbes are hugely diverse! Jennifer’s comparison of all the diversity of the birds on Earth to a single bacterial taxon is mind-blowing!</p> </li> </ul> <ul> <li dir="ltr" style= "line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"> <p dir="ltr">Microbial categorization may be hard, but the ability to group similar organisms is necessary to formulate hypotheses and conduct experiments. It’s important to remember the groupings are manmade and sometimes have to be reconstructed!</p> </li> </ul> <p> </p> <p><strong>Featured Quotes (in order of appearance)</strong></p> <p dir="ltr">“One of the hardest things we study is not on the microbiology side but is on the ecosystem side, measuring those biochemical functions in the environment.” (10:05)</p> <p dir="ltr">“It’s not as if we are ever going to be able to study every particular organism out there and build a model with thousands of equations; instead what we really need to do is go after trade-offs and overall relationships that may hold across large groups, and in that way have some simple rules under different conditions like drought or temperature.” (16:45)</p> <p dir="ltr">"Modern birds evolved about 100, 125 million years ago. Two sequences that share the 16S gene, if it’s roughly 97% identical, probably diverged 150 million years ago. That means we are lumping in all the diversity within the bacteria group within one taxon, calling it a species, which is the equivalent of lumping all birds together!" (18:47)</p> <p dir="ltr">“It’s a bit overwhelming to imagine that for each 16S rRNA taxon, you could have as much functional, morphological, and behavioral diversity as what we see in all of birds!” (19:39)</p> <p dir="ltr">“In biology, we’re always using an operational definition but we don’t want to get too hung up on the definition and miss all the interesting patterns going on!” (20:49)</p> <p dir="ltr">“If you can start to quantify patterns, then you can start to ask ecological and even evolutionary questions about why we see those patterns.” (33:04)<br /> </p> <p><strong>Links for this episode</strong></p> <ul> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr"><a href="http://jmartiny.bio.uci.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Jennifer Martiny Lab Home Page</a></p> </li> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr"><a href="http://microbiome.uci.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">University of California Irvine Microbiome Initiative</a></p> </li> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr">HOM Tidbit: <a href= "http://www.microbe.tv/twim/50-these-things-aren-t-even-bacteria/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">TWIM 50: These things aren’t even bacteria!</a></p> </li> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr"><a href= "http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/01/science/carl-woese-dies-discovered-lifes-third-domain.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Carl Woese Obituary</a> (New York Times)</p> </li> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr"><a href= "http://www.nytimes.com/1996/10/15/science/microbial-life-s-steadfast-champion.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Carl Woese 1996 Feature</a> (New York Times)</p> </li> </ul> <p>Send your stories about our guests and/or your comments to <a href= "mailto:jwolf@asmusa.org.">jwolf@asmusa.org.</a></p>
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071: Neglected Tropical Diseases and Vaccine Advocacy with Peter Hotez
<p dir="ltr"><strong style="font-weight: normal;">Peter Hotez talks about neglected tropical diseases: what are they, where are they found, and where did the term “neglected tropical disease” come from, anyway? Hotez discusses some of the strategies his and other groups are using for vaccine development, and his work as an advocate for childhood vaccines and global health.</strong></p> <p>Host<strong>:</strong> <a href= "index.php/podcasts/meet-the-microbiologist/item/6794" target= "_blank" rel="noopener">Julie Wolf</a></p> <p>Subscribe (free) on <a href= "https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/meet-the-scientist/id289419806?mt=2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">iPhone</a>, <a href= "http://www.subscribeonandroid.com/meetthescientist.microbeworld.libsynpro.com/rss" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Android</a>, <a href= "http://meetthescientist.microbeworld.libsynpro.com/rss" target= "_blank" rel="noopener">RSS</a>, or by <a href= "http://eepurl.com/c4MKHb" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">email</a>. You can also listen on your mobile device with the <a href= "http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id337731458?mt=8" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ASM Podcast app</a>.</p> <p dir="ltr">Julie's biggest takeaways:</p> <ul> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr">Renaming “other diseases” - a large collection of disparate diseases such as schistosomiasis, leishmaniasis, and onchocerciasis (also called river blindness) - as “neglected tropical diseases” by Hotez and colleagues was integral to bringing attention to the diseases of the bottom billion, people that live on less than one U.S. Dollar per day.</p> </li> </ul> <ul> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr">Neglected tropical diseases are often chronic and debilitating without high mortality. These diseases trap people in poverty due to their long-term effects. The NTDs are often associated with terrible stigma that can lead to additional challenges for affected populations.</p> </li> </ul> <ul> <li dir="ltr" style= "line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"> <p dir="ltr">Neglected tropical diseases are found worldwide, in rich and poor countries. The poorest peoples living in the G20 countries (and Nigeria) now account for most of the world’s NTDs.</p> </li> </ul> <ul> <li dir="ltr" style= "line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"> <p dir="ltr">Parasitic infections present challenges for vaccine design, but <a href= "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_vaccinology" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reverse vaccinology</a> may be a useful strategy. Reverse vaccinology mines genomes to identify promising vaccine candidates <em>in silico</em>, which are then narrowed sequentially for those that are expressed on the bacterial surface, immunogenic, and ultimately protective against disease. This strategy has worked for <em>Neisseria meningitidis</em>, and Hotez is hopeful that it will produce effective vaccines for the parasitic infections he studies.</p> </li> <li> <p dir="ltr">The tradition of individual fields and departments, combined with the old-fashioned notion that scientists needn’t spend their time engaging with the public, has led to flatlined budgets and the rise of anti-science movements. Scientists need to engage the public to ensure the future of science and science-based policy.</p> <p dir="ltr"> </p> </li> </ul> <p>Featured Quotes (in order of appearance):</p> <p dir="ltr"><strong style="font-weight: normal;">“The concept of ‘neglected tropical diseases’ was very much born out of the Millennium Development Goals launched in the year 2000.”</strong><br /> </p> <p dir="ltr">“T<strong style="font-weight: normal;">reating NTDs in rich countries “is not a resource problem; it’s an awareness problem.”</strong></p> <p> </p> <p dir="ltr">“If you want to enter global health, we need as many people with a scientific background to go into business and law and international relations as we need to go into traditional scientific pathways”<br /> </p> <p dir="ltr">“Many involved in the antivaccine movement disproportionately involve either parents who are affluent or educated, or both: those who know just enough to do a google search but without the background to separate the garbage from the important stuff. And of course the anti-vaccine groups are deliberately misleading.”<br /> </p> <p dir="ltr">“Research America found that 81% of Americans can’t name a living scientist. That’s our fault. We’re so inward looking that we aren’t taking the time to do public engagement.”<br /> </p> <p>Links for this episode</p> <ul> <li dir="ltr"><a href= "https://www.bcm.edu/people/view/peter-hotez-m-d-ph-d/b1846a47-ffed-11e2-be68-080027880ca6"> Peter Hotez</a> at Baylor College of Medicine</li> <li dir="ltr"><a href="https://peterhotez.org/">Peter Hotez website</a></li> <li dir="ltr"><a href= "http://www.who.int/topics/millennium_development_goals/about/en/">Millennium Development Goals</a> published by the World Health Organization in 2000</li> <li dir="ltr"><a href= "http://www.who.int/neglected_diseases/diseases/en/">WHO list of Neglected Tropical Diseases</a></li> <li dir="ltr"><a href="http://bit.ly/2iXtuC4">Forgotten People, Forgotten Diseases</a> by Peter Hotez</li> <li dir="ltr"><a href= "https://www.amazon.com/Blue-Marble-Health-Innovative-Diseases/dp/1421420465/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1512516218&sr=1-1&keywords=blue+marble+health"> Blue Marble Health</a> by Peter Hotez</li> <li><a href= "http://www.publichealthunited.org/episode-51-peter-hotez-on-vaccine-hesitancy/"> Public Health United episode</a> featuring Hotez<strong><style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></strong></li> <li><style="font-weight: normal;">HOM Tidbit: <a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1415664/?page=1">Oncocerciasis now</a>: 1986 British Medical Journal report</li> </ul> <p>Send your stories about our guests and/or your comments to <a href= "mailto:jwolf@asmusa.org.">jwolf@asmusa.org.</a></p>
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070: Influenza vaccine and susceptibility with Stacey Schultz-Cherry
<p>Stacey Schultz-Cherry explains the selection process to choose the influenza virus strains to include in the annual influenza vaccine. Schultz-Cherry also discusses her research on the influence of obesity on the course of disease and vaccine efficacy.</p> <p><strong>Host:</strong> <a href= "index.php/podcasts/meet-the-microbiologist/item/6794" target= "_blank" rel="noopener">Julie Wolf</a></p> <p>Subscribe (free) on <a href= "https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/meet-the-scientist/id289419806?mt=2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">iPhone</a>, <a href= "http://www.subscribeonandroid.com/meetthescientist.microbeworld.libsynpro.com/rss" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Android</a>, <a href= "http://meetthescientist.microbeworld.libsynpro.com/rss" target= "_blank" rel="noopener">RSS</a>, or by <a href= "http://eepurl.com/c4MKHb" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">email</a>. You can also listen on your mobile device with the <a href= "http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id337731458?mt=8" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ASM Podcast app</a>.</p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>Julie's biggest takeaways:</strong></p> <ul> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr">The WHO Collaborating Centers and National Influenza Centers around the world work with a humongous network of physicians, public health workers, and veterinarians to identify strains most likely to become part of the circulating influenza viruses.</p> </li> </ul> <ul> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr">An influenza strain that makes birds very sick is not necessarily a strain that will make people sick.</p> </li> </ul> <ul> <li dir="ltr" style= "line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"> <p dir="ltr">Predicting phenotype from genotype remains a challenge. Receptor binding to mammalian receptors, signatures in the genome that allow it to replicate in mammalian cells, and transmission between ferrets are the marks of potentially bad strains. Genetics can also tell you a little bit about the antiviral resistance characteristics of a strain.</p> </li> </ul> <ul> <li dir="ltr" style= "line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"> <p dir="ltr">Why can’t we incorporate all known influenza strains into a vaccine? It’s an issue of immunodominance - having enough antibodies against an infectious agent that it will be neutralized should it cause infection. Researchers don’t know how many HAs you can incorporate to generate proper immunity to each molecular version, and this is one area of influenza vaccine research.</p> </li> <li> <p dir="ltr">Obesity appears to decrease the immune response to influenza, potentially affecting the ability to form memory response. This means the vaccine is less effective, the course of disease when infected is worse, and the likelihood of secondary bacterial infection is higher.</p> </li> </ul> <p><strong>Featured Quotes (in order of appearance)</strong></p> <p dir="ltr">“People don’t appreciate how much work goes into this. The importance of surveillance - if we lose our surveillance, it’s going to be very difficult to know which strains to select for the vaccine, as well as diagnostics.”<br /> </p> <p dir="ltr">“Part of the trick is not just predicting which viral strain to use but understanding which of those strains will grow to the highest efficiency without changing when we grow it in eggs to make the vaccine.”<br /> </p> <p dir="ltr">“My bet is, whatever we find, it’s going to end up being 10 times more complicated...which is great for my post-docs, because there’s plenty of opportunities for them to find new things and build new labs, which is ultimately the most important thing you can do as a P.I.”<br /> </p> <p dir="ltr">“I did wound repair during my Ph.D. . . . with my background in wound repair, I said ‘what is a virus but a great big wound” <br /> </p> <p dir="ltr">“When I was changing fields, my thesis committee asked me, ‘what are you doing? I was told it would take five years just to read the literature. You can’t change fields!’ And I said, ‘Yeah, I can.’” And I did!<br /> </p> <p dir="ltr">“Whatever your decision is, you go for it you don’t have regrets, but you put 110% into whatever you decide to do.”<br /> </p> <p><strong>Links for this episode</strong></p> <ul> <li dir="ltr"><a href= "https://www.stjude.org/directory/s/stacey-schultz-cherry.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Stacey Schultz-Cherry</a></li> <li dir="ltr"><a href= "https://www.stjude.org/education-training/st-jude-graduate-school-of-biomedical-sciences.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">St. Jude Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences</a></li> <li dir="ltr"><a href="https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/usmap.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CDC Flu Activity Map</a></li> <li dir="ltr"><a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2554195/" target= "_blank" rel="noopener">HOM Tidbit: Vaccination against Influenza (review)</a></li> </ul> <p>Send your stories about our guests and/or your comments to <a href= "mailto:jwolf@asmusa.org.">jwolf@asmusa.org.</a></p>
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069: Biopreparedness and biosecurity with Gigi Kwik Gronvall
<p>Gigi Kwik Gronvall talks to MTM about the importance of biopreparedness. Gronvall discusses her work in creating policies around potential natural, accidental, and man-made pandemics. She describes her experiences running pandemic thought exercises that help researchers, public health workers, and governmental officials apply preparedness ideas to real-world simulations.</p> <p><strong>Host:</strong> <a href= "index.php/podcasts/meet-the-microbiologist/item/6794" target= "_blank" rel="noopener">Julie Wolf</a></p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>Julie's biggest takeaways:</strong></p> <ul> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr">Thought exercises and scenarios work well for people to understand how technology, communications, human behaviors can affect the spread of infectious disease.</p> </li> </ul> <ul> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr">Many after-action reports after major biosecurity breaches, such as the Dugway contamination event, where inactivated Bacillus anthracis was accidentally shipped without being inactivated. These involve reports on what went wrong, who made mistakes, and how to prevent repeats of these errors going forward.</p> </li> </ul> <ul> <li dir="ltr" style= "line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"> <p dir="ltr">International groups such as the Global Health Security Alliance work with governments and institutions around the world to run dialogs and talk about biosecurity issues, safety issues, pathogen management issues. Comparing notes across countries helps to harmonize policies and find gaps that need addressing.</p> </li> <li dir="ltr" style= "line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"> <p dir="ltr">Bringing scientists into the policy-making meetings is the best way to write regulations in a way to protect the public, the scientists, and the research itself. Crafting good recommendations for governance prevents writing regulations that can be hard to remove.</p> </li> </ul> <p><strong style= "background-color: initial; font-size: 16.016px;">Featured Quotes <strong>(in order of appearance)</strong>:</strong></p> <p dir="ltr">“There’s a public health infrastructure that’s needed to detect epidemics and respond to them appropriately. If you are lacking that infrastructure, it’s like not having a fire department anywhere close when there’s a fire. The fire gets bigger and bigger, it becomes much more difficult to be able to put out the fire, and a lot of lives are lost.”</p> <p dir="ltr">“<strong style="font-weight: normal;">The thinking behind the GHSA is to boost public health infrastructure in different parts of the world that need it and to focus donor attention on some of those areas so that the weakest links are made stronger.</strong>"</p> <p dir="ltr">“<strong style="font-weight: normal;">It’s going to shock no one, but it’s not always the case that the best scientific information is brought to bear on a policy issue.</strong>"</p> <p dir="ltr">“<strong style="font-weight: normal;">You have to do what you can to make things a little bit harder, a little bit more challenging but still allow real, legitimate, important science to continue. Everybody sees that balance a little bit differently.</strong>"</p> <p dir="ltr">“<strong style="font-weight: normal;">It’s important to me that we have someone advocating for the science and making it so it’s not onerous to be a scientist</strong>."</p> <p dir="ltr">“<strong style="font-weight: normal;">Synthetic biology changes the way we think about what biology can do. Biology has a bigger potential to be involved in industrial processes than it used to have.</strong>"</p> <p dir="ltr">“<strong style="font-weight: normal;">The problem with a lot of these pathogens is that they exist in nature...you can’t take care of all options, unfortunately.</strong>"</p> <p>"<strong style="font-weight: normal;">You can’t ever be fully prepared, but you can be in the right mindset to be surprised</strong>."</p> <p><strong>Links for this episode</strong></p> <ul> <li dir="ltr"><a href= "http://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/our-staff/profiles/gronvall/"> Gigi Kwik Gronvall</a> website at Johns Hopkins University</li> <li dir="ltr"><a href= "http://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/our-work/pubs_archive/pubs-pdfs/2017/spars-pandemic-scenario.pdf"> SPARS epidemic pamphlet</a></li> <li dir="ltr"><a href= "https://www.amazon.com/Preparing-Bioterrorism-Foundations-Leadership-Biosecurity/dp/0615706827/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1509565302&sr=1-1&keywords=gigi+kwik+gronvall"> Preparing for Bioterrorism: The Alfred P Sloan Foundation’s Leadership in Biosecurity</a>: Book by Gronvall</li> <li><a href= "https://www.amazon.com/Synthetic-Biology-Safety-Security-Promise/dp/1539336832"> Synthetic Biology: Safety, Security, and Bioterrorism</a>: Book by Gronvall<strong><strong style= "font-weight: normal;"><br /></strong></strong></li> <li><strong><strong style="font-weight: normal;">The <a href= "https://www.ghsagenda.org/">Global Health Security Alliance</a> homepage</strong></strong></li> </ul> <p>Send your stories about our guests and your comments (email or recorded audio) to <a href= "mailto:jwolf@asmusa.org.">jwolf@asmusa.org.</a></p>
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068: Microbiomes everywhere with Jack Gilbert
<p dir="ltr">Jack Gilbert talks about his studies on microbiomes of all sorts. He describes the origin of the Earth Microbiome Project, which has ambitions to characterize all microbial life on the planet, and talks more specifically about the built microbiome of manmade ecosystems such as hospitals. Gilbert explains how advances in scientific techniques have driven past microbiome-related discoveries and will continue to do so in the future.</p> <p><strong>Host:</strong> <a href= "index.php/podcasts/meet-the-microbiologist/item/6794" target= "_blank" rel="noopener">Julie Wolf</a></p> <p>Subscribe (free) on <a href= "https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/meet-the-scientist/id289419806?mt=2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">iPhone</a>, <a href= "http://www.subscribeonandroid.com/meetthescientist.microbeworld.libsynpro.com/rss" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Android</a>, <a href= "http://meetthescientist.microbeworld.libsynpro.com/rss" target= "_blank" rel="noopener">RSS</a>, or by <a href= "http://eepurl.com/c4MKHb" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">email</a>. You can also listen on your mobile device with the <a href= "http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id337731458?mt=8" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ASM Podcast app</a>.</p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>Julie's biggest takeaways:</strong></p> <ol> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr">Insect-pathogenic fungi living in plant roots can pass nitrogen from killed insects to their plant hosts, receiving different carbon nutrients from the plants in return.</p> </li> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr">Fungi harvested after growth on inexpensive materials like chicken droppings are used in agriculture both as fertilizer and as insecticide.</p> </li> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr">Cyclosporine was first discovered in insect-pathogenic fungi.</p> </li> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr">Raymond St. Leger and other scientists working to introduce genetically modified microbes into the environment deeply consider the societal effects of their work, including collaboration with local communities, governmental regulatory bodies, and trusted leaders and tailor their efforts to the regional area.</p> </li> </ol> <p dir="ltr"><strong>Featured Quotes (in order of appearance):</strong></p> <p dir="ltr">“We really can apply ecological understanding of microbiomes and microbial ecosystems to any environment.”</p> <p dir="ltr">“I think basic research is absolutely essential but I always want to think about what that could lead to in the future.”</p> <p dir="ltr">“Reproducibility is key and extraordinarily difficult in all fields of science due to lack of appropriate funding and a zeitgeist in science that discourages scientists from reproducing one another’s studies.”</p> <p dir="ltr">“We are forever striving to validate the predictions we derive from our descriptive work. We create SO MANY predictions!”</p> <p dir="ltr">“No small dreams, no small goals - go big or go home! At the end of the day, we all want to feel like we’re doing something that makes an impact.”</p> <p dir="ltr">“I love to collaborate. I love to work with other people, brilliant people in the microbiome field”</p> <p dir="ltr">“I’m often accused of not being focused enough. What does Jack Gilbert do? Well, I do a little bit of everything - as long as there’s a microbe involved! I like it like that; it keeps me energized.”</p> <p><strong>Links for this episode</strong></p> <ul style="list-style-type: square;"> <li dir="ltr"><a href= "https://microbiome.uchicago.edu/directory/jack-gilbert">Jack Gilbert</a> website at University of Chicago</li> <li dir="ltr">Jack Gilbert <a href= "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDLEL36Fu1E">TedxNaperville Talk</a></li> <li dir="ltr"><a href="http://www.earthmicrobiome.org/">Earth Microbiome Project</a> home page</li> <li dir="ltr"><a href= "https://us.macmillan.com/dirtisgood/jackgilbert/9781250132604/">Dirt is Good</a> - new book by Gilbert and Rob Knight</li> <li>History of Microbiology Tidbit: <a href= "http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/13313/title/-Ome-Sweet--Omics---A-Genealogical-Treasury-of-Words/">Joshua Lederberg piece in The Scientist</a> on ‘microbiome’ nomenclature in 2001.</li> </ul> <p>Send your stories about our guests and your comments (email or recorded audio) to <a href= "mailto:jwolf@asmusa.org.">jwolf@asmusa.org.</a></p>
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067: MRSA in agriculture and zombie epidemiology with Tara C. Smith
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Tara C. Smith discusses her work uncovering ties between agriculture and methicillin-resistant</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Staphylococcus aureus</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">(MRSA). Her studies have found MRSA on and around pig farms, on animal handlers, and even in packaged meat in the grocery store. She also talks about using zombies as an allegory for infectious disease outbreak preparedness.</span></p> <p><strong>Links for this episode</strong></p> <p><a href="http://www.taracsmith.com/"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Tara C. Smith</span></a> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">website</span></p> <p><a href="http://scienceblogs.com/aetiology/"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Aetiology Blog</span></a> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">on Science Blogs Network</span></p> <p><a href= "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7JoHrfKIP8"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Outbreak News Interview</span></a> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">with Smith on her work communicating the science around vaccines and fighting anti-vaccine sentiments.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Smith’s</span> <a href= "http://www.taracsmith.com/writing.html"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">collected writings</span></a> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">on Ebola and emerging infectious diseases</span></p> <p><a href="http://www.bmj.com/content/351/bmj.h6423"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Zombie Infections: Epidemiology, Treatment, and Prevention</span></a> <span style="font-weight: 400;">in the British Medical Journal</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">History of Microbiology tidbit: Thomas Jukes’</span> <a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1986327/"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> 1968 Letter to the</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">British Medical Journal</span></em></a> <span style="font-weight: 400;">and</span> <a href= "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2143510/pdf/9007999.pdf"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">1997 Recollections in</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Protein Science</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">.</span></a></p> <p><strong>Julie’s biggest takeaways:</strong></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">MRSA transitioned from primarily hospital-acquired to community-acquired infections in the 1990s. In the early 2000s, MRSA strains associated with livestock farming emerged in Europe. Smith’s group was the first to identify agriculture-associated MRSA strains in the United States.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Tara found MRSA on the very first farm in which she and her colleagues looked for MRSA.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The MRSA strain ST398 appears to have originated in people as MSSA then moved to livestock, where the strain acquired some antibiotic resistance related genes. This is because zoonotic diseases are a two-way street and microbes can pass from people to animals, as well as passed from animals to people.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Many factors may contribute to MRSA contamination of consumer meat products: for one, MRSA in farms is aerosolized and the same may be true in meat processing facilities. People can also be colonized and spread from workers to products. It’s likely a mixture of strains from farms and strains from people working in the packing plants.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Farms that raise animals without antibiotics were not positive for MRSA. Processing these animals at plants where conventional animals are raised creates potential for cross-contamination, however.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Prophylactic and treatment applications of antibiotics are still allowed for livestock, but antibiotics used for growth promotion purposes were phased out in January 2017.</span></p> <p><strong>Featured quotes:</strong></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“I was in Iowa, the #1 pig-producing state. We started looking for MRSA + found them on the very 1st farm we sampled”<br /></span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“When we think of zoonotic diseases, usually we think of microbes that come from animals to people, but there can be bidirectional transmission. It’s definitely not just a one-way street<br /></span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“That it doesn’t cause disease in pigs made</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">S. aureus</span></em> <span style="font-weight: 400;">invisible to people studying its epidemiology for quite a while”<br /></span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“Our biohazard people probably hated us because we had pounds and pounds of meat products we were checking” for MRSA<br /></span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><em>"S. aureus</em> is definitely not the only one - there’s lots of bacteria that are affected by use of antibiotics on farms”<br /></span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“Everything zombies now is a virus!” <br /></span></p>
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066: Insect-pathogenic fungi as fertilizers and mosquito control with Raymond St. Leger
<p dir="ltr">Raymond St. Leger describes his work on insect pathogenic fungi. Members of this diverse group of fungi can be found as part of the plant rhizosphere, where they provide nutrients to the plant, and can also be deployed as insect control agents. Raymond discusses his work with communities in Burkina Faso, where he works with officials to educate and gain consent for use of mosquito-killing fungi to control the spread of malaria.</p> <p><strong>Host:</strong> <a href= "https://www.asm.org/index.php/podcasts/meet-the-microbiologist/item/6794"> Julie Wolf</a></p> <p>Subscribe (free) on iPhone, Android, RSS, or by email. You can also listen on your mobile device with the <a href= "http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id337731458?mt=8" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Microbeworld app</a>.</p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>Julie's biggest takeaways:</strong></p> <ol> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr">Insect-pathogenic fungi living in plant roots can pass nitrogen from killed insects to their plant hosts, receiving different carbon nutrients from the plants in return.</p> </li> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr">Fungi harvested after growth on inexpensive materials like chicken droppings are used in agriculture both as fertilizer and as insecticide.</p> </li> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr">Cyclosporine was first discovered in insect-pathogenic fungi.</p> </li> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr">Raymond St. Leger and other scientists working to introduce genetically modified microbes into the environment deeply consider the societal effects of their work, including collaboration with local communities, governmental regulatory bodies, and trusted leaders and tailor their efforts to the regional area.</p> </li> </ol> <p dir="ltr"><strong>Featured Quotes:</strong></p> <p dir="ltr">"Possibly fungi kill more organisms than any other disease-causing agents." (2:55)</p> <p dir="ltr">"People are interested in how you can utilize a plant-root colonizing Metarhizium as a comprehensive biofertilizer." (14:30)</p> <p dir="ltr">"Put elite Metarhizium onto corn seeds and you can boost the growth of corn by about 30%." (14:50)</p> <p dir="ltr">"Mosquitos and malaria have no friends." (23:17)</p> <p dir="ltr">"If an insect is especially common, then a strain of Metarhizium will specialize to that insect." (24:35)</p> <p dir="ltr">“There’s a lot of different ethical, political, and social concerns we have to address and we have to resolve before any type of genetically manipulated product can be introduced. We even have questions about the meaning of informed consent!" (28: 30)</p> <p dir="ltr">"Synbio-phobia-phobia: the belief that genetic engineers have that people are going to be frightened of their work."(32:00)</p> <p dir="ltr"><strong style="font-weight: normal;">"In Burkina Faso, you can expect to get more than 200 bites from Anopholes gambiae a day. This is malaria central." (37:58)</strong></p> <p><strong>Links for this episode</strong></p> <ul> <li dir="ltr"><a href= "http://entomology.umd.edu/st-leger-raymond-j.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Raymond St. Leger</a> website at the University of Maryland</li> <li dir="ltr">St. Leger lab <a href= "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqFED_mGQKU" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">research explained in a three-minute video</a></li> <li><a href= "http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/04/12/522068205/fungal-pesticides-offer-a-growing-alternative-to-traditional-chemicals" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NPR story</a> covering fungal pesticides as alternatives to chemicals<strong><strong style= "font-weight: normal;"><br /></strong></strong></li> <li><strong><strong style="font-weight: normal;"><a href= "http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/science-sushi/2017/06/30/frankenfungus-armed-with-venom-toxins-could-join-the-war-against-malaria/#.WcFnG9OGNE5" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Discover Magazine blog</a> on malaria-fighting Frankenfungus</strong></strong></li> <li>CHOMA tidbit: <a href= "https://www.amazon.com/F%C3%A9lix-d%60Herelle-Origins-Molecular-Biology/dp/0300071272/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1506471151&sr=1-1-fkmr0&keywords=F%C3%A9lix+d%60Herelle+and+the+Origins+of+Molecular+Biology+1st+Edition" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Felix d'Herelle and the Origins of Molecular Biology</a> by Bill Summers (Excerpt of Chapter 3. <a href= "https://mwaudio.s3.amazonaws.com/MTM/MTM066/Epizootics_Locusts%20in%20Argentina%20and%20Algeria.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Epizootics: Locusts in Argentina and Algeria</a>).</li> </ul> <p>Send your stories about our guests and/or your comments (email or recorded audio) to <a><span style= "color: #000000;">jwolf@asmusa.org</span>.</a></p>
Listen:
065: Polio Research Breakthroughs with Vincent Racaniello
<p dir="ltr"><a href= "http://www.microbiology.columbia.edu/faculty/racaniello.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Vincent Racaniello</a> discusses how he ended up studying polio virus and the three eureka moments he’s experienced so far: uncovering the polio genome, discovering the polio receptor, and generating a mouse model of polio disease. Vincent discusses his interest in science communications, including <a href="http://www.virology.ws/" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">his blog</a> and <a href="http://microbe.tv" target= "_blank" rel="noopener">active podcast network.</a></p> <p><strong>Host:</strong> <a href= "https://www.asm.org/index.php/podcasts/meet-the-microbiologist/item/6794"> Julie Wolf</a></p> <p><a href= "https://mwaudio.s3.amazonaws.com/MTM/MTM065/Infantile%20Paralysis%20in%20the%20Field%20of%20Virus%20Research.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Activities of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis in the Field of Virus Research</a> (free) on iPhone, Android, RSS, or by email. You can also listen on your mobile device with the <a href= "http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id337731458?mt=8" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Microbeworld app</a>.</p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>Julie's biggest takeaways:</strong></p> <ol> <li dir="ltr">All three polio virus serotypes are covered by the polio vaccine; type 2 has been eradicated and type 3 is close to being eradicated.</li> <li dir="ltr">Enterovirus 68 is a related enteroviruses that is associated with paralysis, but its receptor and disease progression remain largely unknown.</li> <li dir="ltr">Developing tools and techniques to study one virus that can cross into the central nervous system, such as polio, can set up a lab to study other neurotropic viruses, such as enterovirus 68 and Zika virus.</li> <li dir="ltr">All scientists with access to a computer and a social media account can be effective science communicators!</li> </ol> <p dir="ltr"><strong>Featured Quotes:</strong></p> <p dir="ltr">"You have to find people to be mentors who you are going to listen to, and if they give you advice, you follow it." (6:57)</p> <p dir="ltr">"It took me one year to sequence the genome of polio, which you could do in five minutes today." (9:52)</p> <p dir="ltr">"We work on infectious agents and a big part of it is to eradicate them and alleviate human disease." (20:32)</p> <p dir="ltr">"On facebook, you’ve lots of friends who are following you; if you show them science, some of them will listen to it." (33:30)</p> <p dir="ltr">"We all have to share what we do. We’re funded mostly by tax dollars, and we have to let the public know what we do." (34:00)</p> <p><strong>Links for this episode</strong></p> <ul> <li dir="ltr"><a href= "http://www.microbiology.columbia.edu/faculty/racaniello.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Vincent Racaniello</a></li> <li dir="ltr"><a href="index.php/zika-diaries" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">Zika Diaries</a>: a blog about the Racaniello lab experiences studying Zika Virus</li> <li dir="ltr"><a href="http://www.virology.ws/">Virology Blog</a></li> <li dir="ltr"><a href="http://www.microbe.tv/twiv/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">This Week in Virology</a></li> <li dir="ltr"><a href= "http://mbio.asm.org/content/6/6/e01989-15.full" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Scientists: Engage the Public!</a></li> <li>CHOMA tidbit: <a href= "https://mwaudio.s3.amazonaws.com/MTM/MTM065/Infantile%20Paralysis%20in%20the%20Field%20of%20Virus%20Research.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Activities of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis in the Field of Virus Research</a> by Paul de Kruif</li> </ul> <p>Send your stories about our guests and/or your comments (email or recorded audio) to <a><span style= "color: #000000;">jwolf@asmusa.org</span>.</a></p>
Listen:
Welcome to Meet the Microbiologist!
<p>Welcome back, Meet the Scientist subscribers! For those of you who never heard an episode of Meet the Scientist, thanks for taking a listen. We're excited to tell all of you we're now Meet the Microbiologist (MTM). MTM is the same great, one-on-one conversations captured in Meet the Scientist just with a new name and a new host. </p> <p><a href= "index.php/podcasts/meet-the-microbiologist/item/6794">Julie Wolf</a> of the American Society for Microbiology will be bringing back the podcast with all new episodes with scientists who work in one of the many areas of the microbial sciences — genomics, antibiotic resistance, virology, synthetic biology, emerging infectious diseases, microbial ecology, public health, probiotics, and more!</p> <p>The first two new episodes will be released September 28th, beginning with an episode with Vincent Racaneillo of <a href= "http://asm.org/twim">This Week in Microbiology</a> taking about his research on polio and Zika virus, and his experience as a science communicator. The other episode, released the same day, is with Raymond St. James discussing applications of insect-pathogenic fungi as plant fertilizers and mosquito control agents. </p> <p>Make sure to subscribe, for free, wherever you listen to podcasts including <a href= "https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/meet-the-scientist/id289419806?mt=2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">iTunes</a>, <a href= "http://www.subscribeonandroid.com/meetthescientist.microbeworld.libsynpro.com/rss" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Android</a>, or get each episode <a href= "index.php/podcasts/subscribe/item/4360-subscribe-to-asms-podcasts?tmpl=component" target="_blank" rel="noopener">delivered by email</a>. Subscribing to the podcast is the best way to make sure you never miss an episode!</p> <p>Talk to you soon!</p>
Listen:
MTS64 - Martin Blaser - Save Our Endangered Germs
<p>In this podcast, I speak to Martin Blaser, Frederick H. King Professor of Internal Medicine and Chairman of the Department of Medicine and Professor of Microbiology at the New York School of Medicine. Blaser studies Helicobacter pylori, bacteria that live in the stomachs of billions of people. Blaser has shown that H. pylori has a strange double life inside of us. On the one hand, it can cause ulcers and gastric cancer. On the other hand, it can protect us from diseases of the esophagus, allergies, asthma, and perhaps even obesity. We're now eradicating H. pylori with antibiotics and other luxuries of modern life; Blaser thinks we ought to bring it back--but keep it on a tight leash.</p>
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MTS63 - Jeff Gralnick - I Sing the Microbe Electric
<p>All life hums with electricity, from our heartbeats to the electrons that flow to the oxygen we breathe.But some bacteria are electricians par excellence, generating electric currents in the soil and water.</p>
<p>In this podcast, I talk to microbe-electricity expert <a href="http://www.micab.umn.edu/faculty/Gralnick.html" target="_blank">Jeff Gralnick</a> of the University of Minnesota about the biology behind these currents, and how engineers may be able to harness it to power technology.</p>
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MTS62 - Jessica Green - The Living Air
<p>In this podcast I talk to <a href="http://biology.uoregon.edu/people/green/" target="_blank">Jessica Green</a> of the University of Oregon about aerobiology: the science of life in the air.</p>
<p>We live in an invisible ocean of life, with millions of microbes swarming around us. Microbes can live many miles high in the upper atmosphere, and they may actually be able to feed and grow in clouds. Green and I talk not just about high-altitude aerobiology, but about the microbes we share our homes and offices with, and how better understanding them can help our health.</p>
Listen:
MTS61 - Charles Bamforth - Beer: Eight thousand years of biotechnology (39.5 min.)
<p>In this podcast, I talk to Charles Bamforth of the University of California, Davis, about the surprisingly complex chemistry of beer, and the pivotal role microbes play in making it happen.</p>
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MTS60 - Thomas Scott - The Bone-Breaking Virus (29.5 min.)
<p><span style="font-size: x-small;"> In this podcast I talk to Thomas Scott of the University of California, Davis, about dengue fever, a disease that's on the rise. Spread by mosquitoes, it can make you feel as if your bones are broken and leave you exhausted for months. In more serious cases, people suffer uncontrollable bleeding and sometimes die. Dengue is expanding its range, and is even making incursions into the United States. Scott and I talk about what scientists know and don't know yet about dengue, and what the best strategy will be to drive the virus down.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></p>
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MTS59 - Charles Ofria - Digital Life
<p>In this podcast I talk to <a href="http://www.cse.msu.edu/%7Eofria/" target="_blank">Charles Ofria</a>, a computer scientist at Michigan State University.</p>
<p>Ofria and his colleagues have created a program called Avida in which digital organisms can multiply and evolve. They are studying many of evolution's deepest questions, such as how complexity evolves from simplicity and why individuals make sacrifices for each other. The evolution unfolding in Avida is also yielded new software that can run robots and sensors in the real world.</p>
<p>Bonus Content includes:</p>
<p><strong>Avida Movie</strong></p>
<p>In this movie, we started with a normal Avida organism in the middle of the population and let it grow for a while before injecting a highly-virulent parasite into the middle. The hosts are all colored with shades of blue and the parasites are shades of red.</p>
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MTS58 - David Baker - Crowdsourcing Biology
<p>In this podcast I spoke to <a href="http://depts.washington.edu/bakerpg/" target="_blank">David Baker</a>, a professor of biochemistry at the University of Washington. Baker and his colleagues study how proteins fold, taking on the complex shapes that make our lives possible.</p>
<p>It turns out that protein folding is a fiendishly hard problem to solve, and even the most sophisticated computers do a poor job of solving it. So Baker and his colleagues have enlisted tens of thousands of people to play a protein-folding game called <a href="http://fold.it/portal/" target="_blank">Foldit</a>. I talked to David Baker about the discoveries they've made through crowdsourcing, and the challenges of getting 57,000 co-authors listed on a paper.</p>
<p>Additional Resources:</p>
<p><a href="http://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/" target="_blank">Rosetta@Home</a></p>
<p><a href="http://fold.it/portal/" target="_blank">Foldit</a></p>
Listen:
MTS57 - Forest Rohwer - Curing the Corals
<p><span style="font-size: x-small;"> It never occurred to me that the human body and a coral reef have a lot in common--until I spoke to <a href="http://phage.sdsu.edu/" target="_blank">Forest Rohwer</a> for this podcast. Rohwer is a microbiologist at San Diego State University, and he studies how microbes make coral reefs both healthy and sick. Just as we are home to a vast number of microbes, coral reefs depend on their own invisible menagerie of algae and bacteria to get food, recycle waste, and fend off invaders. But as Rohwer writes in his new book, Coral Reefs in the Microbial Seas, we humans have thrown this delicate balance out of kilter, driving the spread of coral-killing microbes instead.</span></p>
<p>Additional Reading:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18479440" target="_blank">Viral communities associated with healthy and bleaching corals.</a><br /><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20539746" target="_blank">The lagoon at Caroline/Millennium atoll, Republic of Kiribati: natural history of a nearly pristine ecosystem.</a><br /><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19397678" target="_blank">Metagenomic analysis of stressed coral holobionts.</a></p>
Listen:
MTS56 - Susan Golden - Clocks for Life
<p>In this podcast, I talk to <a title="Susan Golden Faculty Page" href="http://biology.ucsd.edu/faculty/sgolden.html" target="_blank">Susan Golden</a>, the co-director of the <a href="http://ccb.ucsd.edu/" target="_blank">Center for Chronobiology</a> at the University of California at San Diego.</p>
<p>We talked about Golden's research into time--in particular, how living things know what time it is. While you may have heard of our own "body clock" that tracks the 24-hour cycle of the day, it turns out that some bacteria can tell time, too. Golden has discovered how evolution has produced a molecular clock inside microbes far more elegant than any manmade timepiece.</p>
<p>Additional<span class="bold"> Reading:</span></p>
<div class="title"><a href="http://jb.asm.org/cgi/content/full/190/10/3738" target="_blank">Proteins Found in a CikA Interaction Assay Link the Circadian Clock, Metabolism, and Cell Division in <em>Synechococcus elongatus</em></a>
<p><a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/103/46/17468.abstract?cited-by=yes&legid=pnas;103/46/17468" target="_blank">Quinone sensign by the circadian input kinase of the cyanobacterial circadian clock</a></p>
<p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/meetthescientist/~4/Q4vFLa5JLIM" alt="" width="1" height="1" /></p>
</div>
Listen:
MTS55 - Nancy Moran - The Incredible Shrinking Microbe
<p>How many genes can a species lose and still stay alive? It turns out, bacteria can lose just about all of them!</p>
<p>In this podcast, I talk to <a href="http://eebweb.arizona.edu/faculty/moran/people/moran.htm" target="_blank">Nancy Moran</a> of Yale University about her fascinating work on the microbes that live inside insects such as aphids and cicadas. After millions of years, they have become stripped down creatures that are revealing some profound lessons about how superfluous most genes are--at least if you live inside a host.</p>
<p><strong><span class="bold">Recent Publications:</span></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pgen.1000827" target="_blank">Bacterial genes in the aphid genome: absence of functional gene transfer from <em>Buchnera</em> to its host</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1317441/?tool=pubmed" target="_blank">Symbiosis and insect diversification: an ancient symbiont of sap-feeding insects from the bacterial phylum <em>Bacteroidetes </em></a></p>
<p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/meetthescientist/~4/lXcsxP8n-Pc" alt="" width="1" height="1" /></p>
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MTS54 - Carl Bergstrom - The Mathematics of Microbes
<div>In this podcast I talk to <a href="http://octavia.zoology.washington.edu/" target="_blank">Carl Bergstrom</a> of the University of Washington about the mathematics of microbes.</div>
<div></div>
<div>Bergstrom is a mathematical biologist who probes the abstract nature of life itself. We talk about how life uses information, and how information can evolve. But in Bergstrom's hands, these abstractions shed light on very real concerns in medicine, from the way that viruses jam our immune system's communication systems to to the best ways to fight antibiotic resistance.</div>
<div></div>
<div><strong><span class="bold">Publications:</span></strong></div>
<div></div>
<div class="title">Mapping Change in Large Networks <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0008694" target="_blank">[html]</a> <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/fetchObjectAttachment.action?uri=info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0008694&representation=PDF" target="_blank">[pdf]</a></div>
<div class="title"></div>
<div class="title">The transmission sense of information <a href="http://octavia.zoology.washington.edu/publications/BergstromAndRosvall09.pdf" target="_blank">[pdf]</a></div>
<div class="title"></div>
<div class="title">Dealing with deception in biology <a href="http://octavia.zoology.washington.edu/publications/Bergstrom09.pdf" target="_blank">[pdf]</a></div>
<p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/meetthescientist/~4/ds_rLjDCwlA" alt="" width="1" height="1" /></p>
Listen:
MTS53 - Bonnie Bassler - The Bacterial Wiretap
<p>In this podcast I talk to <a href="http://www.molbio.princeton.edu/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=27" target="_blank">Bonnie Bassler</a>, a professor at Princeton and the president-elect of the American Society for Microbiology.</p>
<p>Bassler studies the conversations that bacteria have, using chemicals instead of words, Her research is not only helping to reveal how bacteria work together to make us sick, but also how we might interrupt their dialogue in order to cure infections.</p>
<p><strong><span class="bold">Related Projects:</span></strong></p>
<p class="title"><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20441767" target="_blank">Measurement of the copy number of the master quorum-sensing regulator of a bacterial cell.</a></p>
<p class="title"><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19920810?itool=Email.EmailReport.Pubmed_ReportSelector.Pubmed_RVDocSum&ordinalpos=1" target="_blank">Information processing and signal integration in bacterial quorum sensing.</a></p>
<p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/meetthescientist/~4/_8HOyy1tvIk" alt="" width="1" height="1" /></p>
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MTS52 - Mitchell Sogin - Expeditions to the Rare Biosphere
<p>In this podcast, I talk to <a href="http://webmail.asmusa.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://jbpc.mbl.edu/labs-sogin.html" target="_blank">Mitchell Sogin</a>, the <span class="Apple-style-span">Director of the <a href="http://webmail.asmusa.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://jbpc.mbl.edu/index.html" target="_blank">Josephine Bay Paul Center for Comparative Molecular Biology and Evolution</a> at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Wood's Hole, Massachusetts. </span></p>
<p><span class="Apple-style-span">Dr. Sogin is one of the leaders of an ambitious project to survey the microbes of the ocean--which total over 36,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 cells. Using the latest DNA-sequencing technology, D</span><span class="Apple-style-span">r. Sogin and his colleagues are cataloging microbes from all over the world, and are discovering a genetic diversity in the microbial world far exceeding anyone's expectations. </span></p>
<p><span class="Apple-style-span">Dr. Sogin explained how most species they find only exist in small numbers, while a minority of species dominate their samples. Dr. Sogin is investigating how this "rare biosphere" changes the way we understand how the ocean's ecosystems work. </span></p>
<p><strong><span class="bold">Related Projects:</span></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://icomm.mbl.edu/" target="_blank">International Census of Marine Microbes</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.whoi.edu/science/cohh/whcohh/" target="_blank">Woods Hole Center for Oceans and Human Health</a></p>
<p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/meetthescientist/~4/W1_gAqQ_k_k" alt="" width="1" height="1" /></p>
Listen:
MTS51- James Liao - Turning Microbes into Fuel Refineries
<p>In this podcast I talk to <a title="James Liao" href="http://www.seas.ucla.edu/%7Eliaoj/" target="_blank">James Liao</a>, a professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at UCLA. I spoke to Dr. Liao about his research into engineering microbes to make fuel. <a class="jcebox" href="http://a.images.blip.tv/Meetthescientist-MTS51JamesLiaoTurningMicrobesIntoFuelRefineries525.jpg" target="_blank"><img class="jcetooltip" style="margin-top: 2px; margin-bottom: 2px; margin-left: 2px; float: right;" title="::MTS51- James Liao - Turning Microbes into Fuel Refineries" src="http://a.images.blip.tv/Meetthescientist-MTS51JamesLiaoTurningMicrobesIntoFuelRefineries525.jpg" alt="" width="197" height="197" /></a> <br /><br /> Today, we get most of the fuel for our cars out of the ground. It's a process fraught with dangerous consequences, from the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico to the rise in global temperatures thanks to greenhouse gases. Dr. Liao is among a growing number of scientists who think that microbes can help us out of this predicament.</p>
<p>We talked about the attraction of microbe-derived fuels, and the challenges of getting bacteria to turn air, water, and sun into something that can power your car.</p>
<p><strong><span class="bold">Selected Publications</span></strong></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v451/n7174/full/nature06450.html" target="_blank">Atsumi, S.; T. Hanai and J.C. Liao (2008) Non-Fermentative Pathways for Synthesis of Branched-Chain Higher Alcohols as Biofuels, <em>Nature</em>, 451:86-89.</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v27/n12/abs/nbt.1586.html" target="_blank"><span>Atsumi,S.; Higashide, W.; and Liao, J.C. (2009) Direct recycling of carbon dioxide to isobutyraldehyde using photosynthesis, </span><em>Nat Biotechnol</em>, 27, 1177-1180</a></p>
<p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/meetthescientist/~4/TFplGMZh3a8" alt="" width="1" height="1" /></p>
Listen:
MTS50.5 - The Making of the Meet the Scientist Podcast
<p>To mark the celebration of Microbeworld's 50th episode of the Meet the Scientist podcast, we created a time lapse video that shows exactly what it takes to produce a single episode of the show.<br /><br />We hope you enjoy this behind the scenes look and we thank you for listening week after week. Cheers, to another 50 episodes!</p>
<p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/meetthescientist/~4/ct5Ak1KMEsQ" alt="" width="1" height="1" /></p>
Watch:
MTS50 - R. Ford Denison - Darwin on the Farm
<p>In this podcast, I talk to <a href="http://www.cbs.umn.edu/eeb/faculty/DenisonRFord/" target="_blank">R. Ford Denison</a> of the University of Minnesota. Denison is an evolutionary biologist who's interested in how to make agriculture better. The ways in which plants thrive or fail are shaped by their evolutionary history, as well as the evolution that unfolds every planting season.</p>
<p>We're most familiar with the evolution of resistance to pesticides in insects and to herbicides in weeds. But evolution has many other effects on farms. For example, many important crop plants, like soybeans, cannot extract nitrogen from the atmosphere on their own. They depend instead on bacteria that live inside their roots.</p>
<p>In exchange for fixed nitrogen, the bacteria get nutrients from the plants. It may seem like a happy case of cooperation, but the evolution of cooperation always runs the risk of cheating and deception. How plants and bacteria come to a compromise is a remarkable story that Denison and his colleagues are now documenting.</p>
<p><strong><span class="bold">Selected Publications</span></strong></p>
<p>Denison, R.F. 2010. <a href="http://www.jstor.org/pss/3690723" target="_blank">Darwinian agriculture: where does nature's wisdom lie?</a> Book in preparation for Princeton University Press.</p>
<p>Ratcliff, W.C., P. Hawthorne, M. Travisano, R.F. Denison. 2009. <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0006055" target="_blank">When stress predicts a shrinking gene pool, trading early reproduction for longevity can increase fitness, even with lower fecundity</a>. PLoS One 4:e6055</p>
<p>Kiers E. T., R.A. Rousseau, S. A. West, and R. F. Denison. 2003. <a href="http://www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/469" target="_blank">Host sanctions and the legume-rhizobium mutualism</a>. Nature 425:78-81.</p>
<p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/meetthescientist/~4/bKNz5EjAtf0" alt="" width="1" height="1" /></p>
Listen:
MTS49 - Irwin Sherman - The Quest for a Malaria Vaccine: The First Hundred Years
<p>In this podcast, I talk with Irwin Sherman, professor emeritus at the University of California at Riverside, about the century-long quest for a vaccine against malaria.</p>
<p>Scientists have been trying to make a vaccine for the disease almost since the discovery of the parasite that causes malaria. Yet decade after decade, they've encountered setbacks and failures. We talked about why it's so hard to make a malaria vaccine, and how likely it is that scientists will ever be able to do so in the future.</p>
<p>If you want to find out more about this long-running saga, check out Sherman's new book, <a href="http://estore.asm.org/viewItemDetails.asp?ItemID=850" target="_blank">The Elusive Malaria Vaccine: Miracle or Mirage</a>.</p>
<p><strong>About the Book</strong></p>
<div>Chronicling a 100-year quest, this book tells the fascinating story of the hunt for the still-elusive malaria vaccine. Its clear, engaging style makes the book accessible to a general audience and brings to life all the drama of the hunt, celebrating the triumphs and documenting the failures. The author captures the controversies, missteps, wars of words, stolen ideas, and clashes of ego as researchers around the world compete to develop the first successful malaria vaccine.</div>
<div></div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0pt;">The Elusive Malaria Vaccine: Miracle or Mirage? is based on author Irwin W. Sherman’s thorough investigation of the scientific literature as well as his first-hand interviews with today’s pioneers in malaria vaccine research. As a result, the book offers remarkable insights into the keys to a successful malaria vaccine and the obstacles hindering its development.</p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0pt;">Malaria is one of humankind’s greatest killers, currently afflicting some 300 to 500 million people. Moreover, malaria infections have begun to spread and surge in places previously free from the disease. With the book’s easy-to-follow coverage of such topics as immunity, immunology, recombinant DNA, and monoclonal antibodies, readers gain a new understanding of the disease itself, the importance of microbe hunters, and the need for responsible leadership to face the challenges that lie ahead in the battle against malaria.</p>
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<p><strong>Other Publications from Dr. Sherman</strong></p>
<p><a href="http://estore.asm.org/viewItemDetails.asp?ItemID=706" target="_blank">Twelve Diseases That Changed Our World</a></p>
<p><a href="http://estore.asm.org/viewItemDetails.asp?ItemID=536" target="_blank">The Power of Plagues</a></p>
<p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/meetthescientist/~4/NCTTnCo-xSQ" alt="" width="1" height="1" /></p>
Listen:
MTS48 - Keith Klugman - Pneumonia: The Hidden Giant
<p><span>In this podcast I talk to <a href="http://www.sph.emory.edu/faculty/KKLUGMA" target="_blank">Keith Klugman</a>, William H. Foege Chair of Global Health at Emory University. </span></p>
<p><span>Dr. Klugman studies the disease that is the number one killer of children worldwide. If you guessed malaria or AIDS, you’d be wrong. It’s pneumonia. Two million children under five die every year from it every year--one child every 15 seconds. </span></p>
<p><a class="jcebox" href="http://a.images.blip.tv/Meetthescientist-MTS48KeithKlugmanPneumoniaTheHiddenGiant741.jpg" target="_blank"><span style="margin-top: 2px; margin-bottom: 2px; margin-left: 2px; float: right;"><span class="zoom-image" style="margin-left: 130px; margin-top: -20px;"> </span></span></a></p>
<p><span>Dr. Klugman and I spoke about his research on how pneumonia causes so much devastation, its hidden role in the 50 million deaths in the 1918 flu pandemic, and how a new pneumonia vaccine can stop the disease in its tracks. For more information on pneumonia and how we can all help fight it, visit the <a href="http://worldpneumoniaday.org/" target="_blank">World Pneumonia Day web site</a>. </span></p>
<p><strong>Dr. Klugman's recent publications:</strong></p>
<p><em><a href="http://www.biomed.emory.edu/PROGRAM_SITES/PBEE/pdf/klugman1.pdf" target="_blank">A role for Streptococcus pneumoniaein virus-associated pneumonia (pdf)</a></em></p>
<p><a href="http://www.biomed.emory.edu/PROGRAM_SITES/PBEE/pdf/klugman3.pdf" target="_blank"><em>Levofloxacin-Resistant Invasive Streptococcus pneumoniae in the <br />United States: Evidence for Clonal Spread and the Impact of <br />Conjugate Pneumococcal Vaccine (pdf</em></a>)</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/meetthescientist/~4/sdh3Gj0Sb1U" alt="" width="1" height="1" /></p>
Listen:
MTS47 - Peter Daszak - Stalking the Wild Microbe
<p><a href="http://www.wildlifetrust.org/about/experts/9-daszak" target="_blank">Dr. Peter Daszak</a> is a disease ecologist and President of the <a href="http://www.wildlifetrust.org/" target="_blank">Wildlife Trust</a>, an international organization of scientists dedicated to the conservation of biodiversity. He is a leader in the field of conservation medicine and is well known for uncovering the wildlife origin of the SARS virus. Dr. Daszak also identifed the first case of a species extinction caused by a disease and has demonstrated a link between global trade and disease emergence via a process called "pathogen pollution."</p>
<p>In this interview I ask Dr. Daszak about the threat new pathogens pose to endangered species and go into detail about his discovery that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chytridiomycosis" target="_blank">chytridiomycosis</a>, a fungal disease caused by the chytrid Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, is responsible for global amphibian population declines. Dr. Daszack also discusses a unique study that exposes how the W.H.O. might better use their resources when faced with new pathogens such as the kind we've seen with the recent outbreak of the H1N1 virus. We also explore how pathogens of animals have the ability to evolve into human diseases like flu and HIV.<br /><br />Links to research discussed in this episode:<br /><br /><a href="http://www-lbtest.jcu.edu.au/school/phtm/PHTM/frogs/papers/daszak-2003.pdf" target="_blank">Infectious disease and amphibian population declines (.pdf)</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10642539" target="_blank">Emerging infectious diseases of wildlife--threats to biodiversity and human health</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.wildlifetrust.org/health/19-sars" target="_blank">Wildlife Trust page about SARS </a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.wildlifetrust.org/health/7-monitoring_the_deadly_nipah_virus" target="_blank">Monitoring the Deadly Nipah Virus </a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.wildlifetrust.org/health/21-assessing_the_impacts_of_global_wildlife_trade" target="_blank">Assessing the Impacts of Global Wildlife Trade </a></p>
<p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/meetthescientist/~4/7qUU_BDDn2k" alt="" width="1" height="1" /></p>
Listen:
MTS46 - Curtis Suttle - It's a Virus World and We Just Live On It
<p>In this podcast I talk to Curtis Suttle, a professor and associate dean at the University of British Columbia.Suttle studies the diversity and population of viruses across the entire planet. He has helped show that viruses are by far the most common life forms on the planet. They also contain most of the genetic diversity of life, and they even control how much oxygen we have to breathe. I talked to Suttle about coming to terms with the fact that we live on a virus planet, and how hard it is to find a place on Earth that's virus-free--even two miles underground. </p>
<p>Links to Curtis Suttle and his work.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.ocgy.ubc.ca/%7Esuttle/" target="_blank">Curtis Suttle's Labatory Website</a></p>
<p>A detailed listing of <a href="http://www.ocgy.ubc.ca/%7Esuttle/pubs.htm" target="_blank">Curtis Suttle's publications </a></p>
<p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/meetthescientist/~4/2qVJ0TG60sU" alt="" width="1" height="1" /></p>
Listen:
MTS45 - James Collins - Engineering Life: The Past and Future of Synthetic Biology
<p><span style="font-size: x-small;">In this podcast, I talk to <a href="http://www.hhmi.org/news/collins_bio.html" target="_blank">James Collins</a>, an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and a professor at Boston University. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: x-small;">Ten years ago Collins helped launch a new kind of science called synthetic biology. I talked to Collins about the achievements of synthetic biology over the past decade, such as engineering E. coli that can count, and about the future of synthetic biology--from using bacteria to make fuel to reprogramming the bacteria in our guts to improve our health.</span></p>
<p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/meetthescientist/~4/ifc-W-RZz9c" alt="" width="1" height="1" /></p>
Listen:
MTS44 - Michael Worobey - In Search of the Origin of HIV and H1N1's Hidden History
<p>In this episode, I talk to <a href="http://eebweb.arizona.edu/Faculty/Bios/worobey.html" target="_blank">Michael Worobey</a>, an associate professor at the University of Arizona.</p>
<p>Worobey is virus detective, gathering clues about how some of the world's deadliest pathogens have emerged and spread across the globe. Worobey and I talked about the harrowing journeys he has made in search of the origin of HIV, as well as the round-the-clock data-processing he and his colleagues used to discover the hidden history of the new H1N1 flu strain.</p>
<p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/meetthescientist/~4/auFj7qhINBg" alt="" width="1" height="1" /></p>
Listen:
MTS43 - Rob Knight - The Microbes That Inhabit Us
<p>In this episode, I speak to <a title="Rob Knight Faculty Page" href="http://www.colorado.edu/chem/people/knightr.html" target="_blank">Rob Knight</a>, an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Colorado, Boulder.</p>
<p>Knight studies our inner ecology: the 100 trillion microbes that grow in and on our bodies. Knight explained how hundreds of species can coexist on the palm of your hand, how bacteria manipulate your immune system and maybe even your brain, and how obesity and other health problems may come down to the wrong balance of microbes.</p>
<h3>Links to studies mentioned in this episode:</h3>
<div>Ruth Ley and Peter Turnbaugh's studies on obesity in Jeff Gordon's lab:</div>
<div><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16033867?itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum%26ordinalpos=7" target="_blank">Obesity alters gut microbial ecology.</a></div>
<div><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17183309?itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum%26ordinalpos=6" target="_blank">Microbial ecology: human gut microbes associated with obesity.</a></div>
<div><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17183312?itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum%26ordinalpos=5" target="_blank">An obesity-associated gut microbiome with increased capacity for energy harvest.</a></div>
<div><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19043404?itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum%26ordinalpos=1" target="_blank">A core gut microbiome in obese and lean twins.</a></div>
<div></div>
<div>Julie Segre's studies of the skin:</div>
<div><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18502944?itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum%26ordinalpos=4" target="_blank">A diversity profile of the human skin microbiota.</a></div>
<div><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19478181?itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum%26ordinalpos=2" target="_blank">Topographical and temporal diversity of the human skin microbiome.</a></div>
<div></div>
<div>Chris Lauber and Elizabeth Costello's studies of human-associated body habitats (in Noah Fierer's and Rob Knight's lab):</div>
<div><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19004758?itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum%26ordinalpos=5" target="_blank">The influence of sex, handedness, and washing on the diversity of hand surface bacteria.</a></div>
<div><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19892944?itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum%26ordinalpos=1" target="_blank">Bacterial community variation in human body habitats across space and time.</a></div>
<div></div>
<div>Jeremy Nicholson's studies of the metabolome:</div>
<div><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19667173?itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum%26ordinalpos=1" target="_blank">Pharmacometabonomic identification of a significant host-microbiome metabolic interaction affecting human drug metabolism.</a></div>
<div></div>
<div>Cathy Lozupone's study of global microbial diversity (in Rob Knight's lab), and confirmation of the patterns in archaea by Jean-Christophe Auguet:</div>
<div><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17592124?itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum%26ordinalpos=13" target="_blank">Global patterns in bacterial diversity.</a></div>
<div><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19847207?itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum%26ordinalpos=1" target="_blank">Global ecological patterns in uncultured Archaea.</a></div>
<div></div>
<div>Ruth Ley and Cathy Lozupone's study integrating gut-associated and environmental bacteria:</div>
<p><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18794915?itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum%26ordinalpos=5" target="_blank">Worlds within worlds: evolution of the vertebrate gut microbiota.</a></p>
<p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/meetthescientist/~4/_hA3Rtsm9x4" alt="" width="1" height="1" /></p>
Listen:
MTS42 - Julian Davies - The Mysteries of Medicine's Silver Bullet
<p>In this episode I speak to <a title="Julian Davies Faculty Page" href="http://www.microbiology.ubc.ca/davies" target="_blank">Julian Davies</a>, professor emeritus in the Department of Microbiology & Immunology at the University of British Columbia.</p>
<p>Dr. Davies is one of the world's experts on antibiotics. I talked to Davies about how the discovery of antibiotics changed the course of modern medicine, and how we now face a growing threat from the evolution of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. We also talked about some enduring mysteries about antibiotics.</p>
<p>Most of us think of antibiotics as a way to kill microbes. But the fact is that microbes make antibiotics naturally, and for them, these molecules may not be lethal weapons. They may actually be a way to talk to other microbes.</p>
Listen:
MTS41 - Sallie Chisholm - Harvesting the Sun
<p>In this episode I speak to <a title="Penny Chisholm" href="http://chisholmlab.mit.edu/people/chisholm.html">Sallie "Penny" Chisholm</a>, the Lee and Geraldine Martin Professor of Environmental Studies at MIT. Dr. Chisholm studies photosynthesis—the way life harnesses the energy of the sun. Plants carry out photosynthesis, but so do microbes in the ocean. Dr. Chisholm studies the most abundant of these photosynthetic microbes, a species of bacteria called Prochlorococcus. There are a trillion trillion Prochlrococcus on Earth. Dr. Chisholm researches these microbial lungs of the biosphere, and how they produce oxygen on which we depend.</p>
<p>Along with her scientific research, Dr. Chisholm is also the author of a new children's book, <a title="Take me to Amazon" href="http://www.amazon.com/Living-Sunlight-Plants-Bring-Earth/dp/0545044227">Living Sunlight: How Plants Bring The Earth To Life</a>.</p>
Listen:
MTS40 - John Wooley - Exploring the Protein Universe
<p><a href="http://pharmacology.ucsd.edu/faculty/wooley.shtml">John Wooley</a> is Associate Vice Chancellor of Research and Professor of Chemistry-Biochemistry and of Pharmacology at the University of California San Diego. Wooley is a leader in the young field of metagenomics: the science of gathering vast numbers of genes from the oceans, soils, air, and the human body.</p>
<p>A generation ago biologist knew the sequences of a few thousand genes. Since then that figure has jumped to several million genes and it's only going to continue to leap higher in years to come. This wealth of data is allowing scientists to get answers to fundamental questions they rarely even asked a generation ago.</p>
<p>They're starting to understand how thousands of species of microbes coexist in our bodies. They're investigating how hundreds of genes work together inside a single cell and they're starting to get a vision of the full diversity of the billions of proteins that life produces, what scientists sometimes call the protein universe.</p>
<p>John Wooley has been at the center of this revolution, investigating some of these new questions and leading pioneering projects such as <a href="http://camera.calit2.net/">CAMERA</a>, the Community Cyberinfrastructure for Advanced Marine Microbial Ecology Research and Analysis, to organize the unprecedented amount of data that scientists have at their disposal so that they can master that data rather than drown in it.</p>
<p>In this episode I spoke to Wooley about how metagenomics has revolutionized research on everything from marine ecology to human health, and how he and his colleagues cope with an influx of data on millions of new genes.</p>
Listen:
MTS39 - Paul Turner - Pandemic in a Petri Dish
<p>In this episode I talk with <a href="http://www.yale.edu/turner/people/pturner.htm">Paul Turner</a>, an associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Yale University.<br /><br />2009 saw the emergence of a new strain of H1N1 flu. Scientists soon determined that the virus had leaped from pigs to humans and then spread to millions of people. <br /><br />When viruses make this kind of leap it's a reason to worry. In 1918 when a strain of flu leapt from birds to humans, 50 million people died in a matter of months. So far the new H1N1 flu strain is behaving like a relatively ordinary flu. Still even ordinary flu is a matter of serious concern. Over 4,000 people in the US alone have died from the new H1N1 flu strain and scientists can't say for sure what it would take to turn this new strain into a global killer.<br /><br />It's a sobering reminder of how mysterious virus evolution remains. Over the past century a number of viruses have made the leap from animal host to humans including SARS and HIV and scientists worry that the next great plague may be a virus that we don't even know about yet.<br /><br />Paul Turner is learning how new viruses emerge by watching them evolve in his lab. Fortunately the viruses he studies don't make you sick. Instead they attack E-coli and other single celled hosts. But these viruses are teaching Turner and his colleagues about some of the fundamental rules that govern how viruses evolve to attack new hosts. Turner hopes that what he and his colleagues learn about those rules may help future generations of scientists fight against the next generation of viruses that can make us sick.</p>
Listen:
MTS38 - Jonathan Eisen - An Embarrassment of Genomes
<p><a title="Eisen Wiki page" href="http://bobcat.genomecenter.ucdavis.edu/mediawiki/index.php/Main_Page" target="_blank">Jonathan Eisen</a> is a professor at the <a class="external text" title="http://genomecenter.ucdavis.edu/index_html.html" rel="nofollow" href="http://webmail.asmusa.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://genomecenter.ucdavis.edu/index_html.html" target="_blank">University of California, Davis Genome Center</a>. Over the course of his career, he has pioneered new ways of sequencing microbial genomes and analyzing them.</p>
<p>I talked to Eisen about some of the weirdest creatures he's studied, such as bacteria that only live on the bellies of worms at the bottom of the ocean, and how we may be able to exploit their genomes for our own benefit. We also discussed the new movement for open access to scientific literature, a subject that's a particular passion of Eisen, who is academic editor in chief at the open-access journal <a title="PLOS Biology Web Page" href="http://biology.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pbio.0060048" target="_blank">PLOS Biology</a>.</p>
Listen:
MTS37 - Hazel Barton - Cave Dwellers
<p><a href="http://www.cavescience.com/">Hazel Barton</a> is the Ashland Professor of Integrative Science at Northern Kentucky. She explores some of the world's most remote caves to study the remarkable diversity of microbes that thrive in their dark rececesses. I spoke to Barton about how she first became captivated by these bizarre organisms, what it's like to do delicate microbiology when you're hip-deep in mud, and why she wants to explore caves on Mars in search of Martians.</p>
<p> </p>
Listen:
MTS36 - Dennis Bray - Living Computers
<p><a title="Dennis Bray" href="http://www.pdn.cam.ac.uk/groups/comp-cell/" target="_blank">Dennis Bray</a> is an active professor emeritus in both the Department of Physiology and Department of Neuroscience at the University of Cambridge. He studies the behavior of microbes--how they "decide" where to swim, when to divide, and how best to manage the millions of chemical reactions taking place inside their membranes. For Bray, microbes are tiny, living computers, with genes and proteins serving the roles of microprocessors.</p>
<div>In this interview, I talked with Bray about his provocative new book, <a title="Wetware" href="http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=9780300141733" target="_blank">Wetware: A Living Computer Inside Every Cell</a>.</div>
<p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/meetthescientist/~4/ZfXk_oD7hzM" alt="" width="1" height="1" /></p>
Listen:
MTS35 - Michael Cunliffe - The Ocean's Living Skin
<p><a title="Michael Cunliffe" href="http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/bio/research/jcmurrell/people/michael/" target="_blank">Michael Cunliffe</a> is a microbiologist in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Warwick in England. He studies the microbes that live in the thin layer of water at the very surface of the ocean. His research is shedding light on an ecosystem that's both mysterious and huge, spanning three-quarters of the surface of the planet.</p>
<p>In this interview, I talked with Cunliffe about the discovery of this sea-surface ecosystem, and the influence it has over the Earth's climate.</p>
<p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/meetthescientist/~4/6Zh_MYEXufE" alt="" width="1" height="1" /></p>
Listen:
MTS34 - Pratik Shah - Combatting Pathogens with Polyamines
<p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/meetthescientist/~4/ZAGgP_qnZMw" alt="" width="1" height="1" />Pratik Shah is a graduate student in the Department of Microbiology at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, and he’s a 2009 recipient of ASM’s Raymond W. Sarber award, granted to recognize students for research excellence and potential.<br /><br />His research focuses on polyamines and polyamine biosynthesis and transport systems in Streptococcus pneumoniae. He’s studying polyamines with the goal of finding potential targets for pneumococcal vaccines and prophylactic interventions against pneumococcal disease. <br /><br />In this interview, I talked with Pratik about why polyamines may hold the key for new ways to combat pathogens, his plans for the future, and about advice he would give to young people considering grad school.</p>
Listen:
MTS33 - Abigail Salyers - The Art of Teaching Science
<p>Abigail Salyers is a Professor of Microbiology and the G. William Arends Professor of Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and her research focuses on the ecology of microorganisms in the human body and the comings and goings of antibiotic resistance genes, particularly genes in Bacteroides species. Dr. Salyers is ASM’s 2009 Graduate Microbiology Teaching Awardee. <br /><br />If you’ve ever tried teaching or mentoring, you know it’s not always easy, but for an eminent scientist, teaching at the undergraduate or graduate level must be incredibly difficult. After all, once you reach a certain level of knowledge in any field, it can be hard to relate your knowledge to people who know relatively little about it. Dr. Salyers has tackled 100-level biology courses with as many as 300 students, taught one-on-one at the lab bench, and been an instructor at an intensive summer course in microbial diversity, all while rising to the top of her field in research. <br /><br />In this interview, I talked with Dr. Salyers about the most influential teacher in her own life (you might be surprised to learn who that is), about whether antibiotic resistance is getting the kind of play it deserves, and about why the baboon vagina is an interesting study system.</p>
<p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/meetthescientist/~4/UqMvo53T_KA" alt="" width="1" height="1" /></p>
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MTS32 - Arthur Guruswamy - Mycobacterial and Fungal Pathogens
<p>Arthur Guruswamy is a clinical microbiologist in Virginia’s Department of General Services Division of Consolidated Laboratory Services and the winner of ASM's Scherago-Rubin Award in recognition of an outstanding, bench-level clinical microbiologist. His particular interest lies in mycobacterial and fungal diseases, including tuberculosis. <br /><br />In his work, Mr. Guruswamy places a lot of emphasis on helping others. A while back, he traveled to his native Sri Lanka to train clinic staff in the use of a rapid, low tech method for identifying cases of tuberculosis. Using this method has probably saved many lives, since staff Mr. Guruswamy trained can now treat their patients quickly and avoid the three to four week wait for culture results. <br /><br />Mr. Guruswamy is also involved in ASM’s Minority Mentoring Program so he can offer younger scientists the kind of assistance he says he got from other ASM members back at the beginning of his own career, when he arrive in the United States with less than $50 in his pocket. <br /><br />In this interview, I asked Mr. Guruswamy about his work at the state lab in Virginia, about tuberculosis in this country, and about why he saw more unusual clinical cases during his time working at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota than he has during any other phase of his career.</p>
Listen:
MTS31 - Frances Arnold - Engineering Microbes
<p><a title="Frances Arnold Research Group" href="http://www.che.caltech.edu/groups/fha/" target="_blank">Dr. Frances Arnold</a> is a professor of Chemical Engineering and Biochemistry at the California Institute of Technology (most of us know it as Caltech). Dr. Arnold’s research focuses on evolutionary design of biological systems, an approach she is currently applying to engineer cellulases and cellulolytic enzymes for manufacturing biofuels.</p>
<p> This country’s energy security can look pretty bleak when you think about it: the need to address global warming, strife in oil-rich nations, and depletion of fossil fuels combine to paint an uncertain future, and although ethanol has a lot of friends in Iowa and D.C., ethanol isn’t going to end our energy woes. In the future, our energy supply will probably be cobbled together from a number of different fuels and sources. <br /><br />Dr. Arnold is interested in engineering microbes that can grant us a biofuel that packs more of a caloric punch than ethanol. She likes <a title="Isobutanol info on Wikipedia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isobutanol" target="_blank">isobutanol</a>, which can be converted into a fuel that’s more like the hydrocarbons we currently put into our fuel tanks. To develop proteins that make the comounds she wants the way she wants, Arnold and her team take a gene that needs tweaking to do the job, introduce directed mutations into it, and select the mutant proteins that do the job best. <br /><br />In this interview, I talked with Dr. Arnold about how she got into alternative energy during the Carter administration (and got out again during the Reagan administration), what she sees in the P450 enzyme, and how she explains her work to people outside her field.</p>
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MTS30 - Stanley Plotkin - The Past, Present, and Future of Vaccines
<p><a title="Stanley Plotkin Wikipedia page" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Plotkin">Stanley Plot</a><a title="Stanley Plotkin Wikipedia page" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Plotkin">kin</a> is Professor Emeritus at the Wistar Institute and the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. A renowned vaccinologist, Dr. Plotkin is, perhaps, best known for developing a highly successful vaccine for rubella back in 1968. We are still using the same vaccine 40 years later. Dr. Plotkin has been honored with the inaugural <a title="Hilleman/Merck Award info" href="http://www.asm.org/Academy/index.asp?bid=57948">Maurice Hilleman / Merck Award</a> for his lifetime of dedication to vaccinology. </p>
<p>For most people, rubella amounts to a bad rash and a crummy week, but for a fetus, the risks from infection are extremely serious. The rubella virus inhibits tissue growth in infected fetuses, often resulting in profound birth defects collectively referred to as congenital rubella syndrome. <br /> <br /> Dr. Plotkin developed the rubella vaccine in the wake of a rubella pandemic in 1964, during which he estimates that about 1 in 100 women in his home city of Philadelphia came down with rubella. Nationwide, thousands of babies were born with congenital rubella syndrome in the wake of the outbreak. Thanks to the vaccine developed by Dr. Plotkin, rubella has essentially been eradicated in the U.S. and most other developed countries. In many parts of the developing world, efforts are underway to piggy back the rubella vaccine with the measles vaccine to eradicate both of these diseases everywhere else. <br /> <br /> In this interview, I talked with Dr. Plotkin about the backlash against vaccines for their perceived safety risks, how he would change vaccine policy, and about the rewards of a career in vaccine development.</p>
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MTS29 - Christine Biron - The Innate Immune System
<p><a title="Christine Biron Brown Univ. webpage" href="http://research.brown.edu/myresearch/Christine_Biron" target="_blank">Christine Biron</a> is the chair of the Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology at Brown University in Providence, and she focuses her research program on the mechanisms of the innate immune system – the body’s system of non-specific munitions for fighting off pathogens. Dr. Biron is also a newly elected fellow of the <a href="http://academy.asm.org/" target="_blank">American Academy of Microbiology</a>.</p>
<p>When a pathogen gets on or in your body, your <a title="Innate Immune System Wiki page" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innate_immune_system" target="_blank">innate immune system</a> is on the front lines, working against the pathogen is a non-specific manner. In research, the innate immune system got short shrift for a long time, and only in the last 10 or 20 years has the field picked up momentum. Dr. Biron says back when she was in graduate school “the innate immune system wasn’t thought to be very cool”, but she says the field is fast-moving today, in part because of some major discoveries involving Type-1 interferons, natural killer cells, and an increased appreciation of a wider range of antigen processing cells that link the innate and adaptive immune responses.</p>
<p>In this interview, I talked with Dr. Biron about our increasing awareness of the innate immune system, why it’s important to bring microbiologists and immunologists together under one big tent, and why it’s best that a battle between a virus and a host ends not in victory for one and defeat for the other, but in détente.</p>
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MTS28 - Joseph DeRisi - New Tech Approaches to Infectious Disease
<p>Joseph DeRisi is a Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator.<br /> <br /> His research focuses on two distinct areas: malaria and new viral pathogen discovery. Dr. DeRisi is this year’s recipient of the Eli Lilly and Company Research Award, granted in recognition of fundamental research of unusual merit in microbiology or immunology by an individual on the threshold of his or her career.</p>
<p>Discovering new viral pathogens seems like exciting work, and DeRisi has lots of ideas for prospecting. In one recent success with their viral microarray, his group recently helped identify the virus responsible for a devastating disease among rare parrots and other birds: proventricular dilatation disease, or PDD, has been recognized for 30 years, but veterinarians didn’t know the cause or how to control it. Now that DeRisi’s group has pinpointed Avian Bornavirus as the culprit and sequenced its genome, therapies and control measures to help both captive birds and birds in the wild can’t be far behind. <br /><br />In this interview, I asked Dr. DeRisi whether he’s interested in putting the microarray approach to virus discovery to work in uncovering the causes of some human illnesses, especially those diseases we suspect might be spread by viruses, but for which we’ve never found a virus responsible. He has some very interesting ideas for where to start. We also talked about his work on identifying the SARS virus, and a new approach in the ongoing fight against malaria.</p>
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MTS27 - Melanie Cushion - Pneumocystis carinii
<p>Melanie Cushion holds down two jobs: she’s a research career scientist at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Cincinnati, Ohio, and she’s also professor and associate chair for research in the department of internal medicine at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. Dr. Cushion focuses her research on the fungus, Pneumocystis carinii, which is a harmless commensal for most people, but a deadly pathogen for others. <br /> <br /> Pneumocystis carinii was shrouded in obscurity for many years until its fifteen minutes in the spotlight came in the 80’s, when, unfortunately, an outbreak of Pneumocystis pneumonia prefigured the AIDS epidemic. Large numbers of previously healthy homosexual men in California became deathly ill with Pneumocystis pneumonia, and doctors knew something unusual (later found to be HIV) was going on. Dr. Cushion says Pneumocystis pneumonia is an opportunistic infection: it strikes individuals with immune systems too weak to fend it off. This explains why it was – and still is – a well-known sign that the patient is stricken with an active HIV infection or some other immune-suppressing disorder. <br /> <br /> Dr. Cushion heads up the Pneumocystis genome project and she’s also looking into a new line of drugs called glucan synthase inhibitors, which have a profound effect on Pneumocystis’s life cycle and may offer new insights into managing the pathogen.<br /> <br /> In this interview, I talked with Dr. Cushion about some of the more surprising results to come out of her genomics work, why Pneumocystis is a tough nut to crack in the laboratory, and about why she’s not giving her young investigator award back to the Society of Protozoologists any time soon.</p>
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MTS26 - Ian Orme - Tuberculosis
<p><a title="Ian Orme Faculty Webpage" href="http://www.cvmbs.colostate.edu/mip/people/faculty/orme.aspx" target="_blank">Ian Orme</a> is a professor in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Pathology at Colorado State University, and his research focuses on the immune response to <a title="Tuberculosis info wiki page" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuberculosis" target="_blank">tuberculosis (TB)</a> – a bacterial disease that most often infects the lungs. He's speaking at the American Society for Microbiology's Conference for Undergraduate Educators (<a title="ASMCUE info page" href="http://www.asmcue.org/" target="_blank">ASMCUE</a>).</p>
<p>In the U.S., TB seems like a thing of the past. Here, public health measures and medical care have all but wiped out the threat from this infection. But worldwide, the WHO says there were 9.2 million new TB cases in 2006 alone, and each person with TB infects an average of 10 to 15 people with the TB bacterium every year.</p>
<p>These are just some of the reasons Dr. Orme is delivering a talked titled “Tuberculosis: Why Now Is a Good Time to Leave the Planet” at ASMCUE. He admits leaving the planet isn’t a practical suggestion, but he wants to raise awareness of the disease and he’s not afraid to stir the pot a little. Orme and his group not only study the immune responses to TB bacteria, they’re also following a number of different avenues for developing new vaccines and improving the existing vaccine, BCG (bacille Calmette-Guérin).</p>
<p>In this interview, I talked with Dr. Orme about his vaccine work, why he thinks latent TB bacteria aren’t really latent, and how he sometimes feels like the wild-haired radical, cat-calling from the corner of the lecture hall.</p>
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MTS25 - Parisa Ariya - Bioaerosols | The Living Atmosphere
<p><a href="http://www.meteo.mcgill.ca/parisa/index.html">Parisa Ariya</a> is a professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences and the Chemistry Department at McGill University in Montreal. Dr. Ariya works mostly in atmospheric chemistry, but she’s also done a good deal of work with <span id="apture_prvw1" class="aptureLink"><span class="aptureLinkIcon" style="background-position: right -1350px;"> </span><a class="aptureLink snap_noshots" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioaerosol">bioaerosols</a></span> and airborne microorganisms. She’ll deliver a talk at the <a href="http://gm.asm.org/">ASM General Meeting</a> in May titled Bioaerosols: Impact on Physics and Chemistry of the Atmosphere.</p>
<p>Bioaerosols – microscopic clumps of microorganisms and organic debris – arise through any of a number of mechanisms. The scientific community has come full circle on the idea of microorganisms in the atmosphere, according to Dr. Ariya. Back in the early days of microbiology it was widely recognized that the air is full of living, breathing microbes, but once our understanding of atmospheric chemistry and physics matured, the roles of microbes in atmospheric processes were marginalized. Thanks, in part, to Dr. Ariya’s work, the activities and functions of bioaerosols are getting new attention. We now know cells in bioaerosol particles can actively metabolize materials at interfaces, and Dr. Ariya says some of her future work will look into the details of these transformation processes and how they impact the atmosphere.</p>
<p>In this interview, Dr. Merry Buckley talks with Dr. Ariya about how bioaerosols are formed, what they’re doing, and why it isn’t a good idea to use bioaerosols to manage the weather.</p>
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MTS24 - Jeff Bender - MRSA in Animals
<p><a href="http://www.cvm.umn.edu/facultystaff/vpm/bender.html" target="new">Jeff Bender</a> is a professor of veterinary public health at the University of Minnesota, and his research interests lie in the intersection of animal health and human health, including animal-borne diseases of humans, food safety, and antibiotic resistant pathogens in animals. Dr. Bender will speak on “Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (<span id="apture_prvw1" class="aptureLink"><span class="aptureLinkIcon" style="background-position: right -1350px;"> </span><a class="aptureLink snap_noshots" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methicillin-resistant%20Staphylococcus%20aureus">MRSA</a></span>) in Veterinary Practice” at the American Society for Microbiology’s <a href="http://gm.asm.org/">General Meeting</a> in Philadelphia this May.</p>
<p>To a microorganism, vertebrates can all look pretty similar. Dr. Bender’s work focuses on pathogens that can make themselves at home in both human bodies and the bodies of our pets and livestock. Outbreaks of bacterial illnesses from meat products are well publicized these days, but the pathogens we have in common with animals don’t just travel in one direction. We humans can pass organisms and diseases to our animals, too. Dr. Bender says pets treated at veterinary clinics, for example, have come down with painful MRSA skin infections they picked up from their owners. Fluffy might become a temporary reservoir of MRSA in your home – capable of reinfecting you and your family, but the good news is that she probably won’t be a long term carrier of the bacterium.</p>
<p>In this interview, Dr. Merry Buckley asks Dr. Bender about MRSA in pets, whether farmers often get sick from animal-borne diseases, and whether he thinks it’s a good idea to “go organic” when shopping for food.</p>
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MTS23 - Jo Handelsman - The Science of Bug Guts
<p>Jo Handelsman is a professor at the University of Wisconsin, where she’s a member of the Department of Plant Pathology and chair of the Department of Bacteriology. Dr. Handelsman’s research focuses on microbial communities – their composition, how they’re structured, and how they work. Thanks to her work to improve the quality of undergraduate education, Dr. Handelsman is this year’s recipient of the American Society for Microbiology’s Carski Foundation Undergraduate Teaching Award.</p>
<p>Dr. Handelsman has been at the cutting edge of microbial science for years. After a long time spent studying the teeming communities of microorganisms that dwell in soil, Handelsman has pared down her focus to some arguably simpler neighborhoods: the guts of insects. Handelsman applies molecular methods to identify the strains and genes present in bug guts and combines this knowledge with other information about these environments to learn what these communities might be doing.</p>
<p>Handelsman also takes a particular interest in science education, and along with her colleagues Sarah Miller and Christine Pfund, she recently co-authored Scientific Teaching, a book that outlines a dynamic research- and results-driven approach to teaching college-level science.</p>
<p>In Dr. Merry Buckley's interview with Dr. Handelsman, they discuss about why microbiologists have a responsibility to educate almost everyone, why bacterial communities in the guts of gypsy moths might need genes for antibiotic resistance, and why and how bacteria inside of insects communicate. They also talk about the underrepresentation of women in academic research appointments and about how universities need to change to make these jobs both more available and attractive for all those brainy women who won’t (or can’t) make the jump from graduate school to academic research.</p>
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MTS22 - David Knipe - Herpes Simplex Virus 2 (HSV-2)
<p><a href="http://knipelab.med.harvard.edu/default.html" target="_blank">David Knipe</a> is the Higgins Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics at Harvard Medical school. A virologist, Dr. Knipe focuses his research efforts on the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hsv_2" target="_blank">herpes simplex virus 2 (HSV-2)</a> – the virus we have to thank for genital herpes.</p>
<p>An astonishing 20% of Americans have been infected with HSV-2, and whether they’ve had a recognizable outbreak of sores or not, they can still carry the virus. Once you contract the HSV-2 it lays low in your nerve cells, waiting for the right moment to create watery blisters that eventually burst and release more virus particles. Dr. Knipe is interested in how the cells lead these two, very different lives: quiet and quiescent inside the nerve cell and loud and lytic in the epithelium on the surface of the body.</p>
<p>Genital herpes is no picnic, but the effects of HSV-2 infection are worst in people with depressed immune systems and in newborns; babies who pick up the virus during birth may suffer from neurological damage, brain damage, or even death. There is no cure for genital herpes, and no means of getting rid of HSV-2, only ways of managing outbreaks. But there is some hope of relief; Dr. Knipe’s lab has developed a vaccine that will enter the trial phase soon.</p>
<p>In this interview, I asked Dr. Knipe about how he got interested in viruses, about the vaccine he’s developed and who could hope to benefit from it, and why it’s taken science so long to develop a vaccine for this extremely common disease.</p>
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MTS21 - Andrew Knoll - Ancient Life and Evolution
<p>Dr. <a href="http://www.eps.harvard.edu/people/faculty/knoll/" target="_blank">Andrew Knoll</a> is the Fisher Professor of Natural History in Harvard University’s Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, where he studies ancient life, its impacts on the environment, and how the environment, in turn, shaped the evolution of life. In recognition of the 200th anniversary of Charles’ Darwin’s birth and the 150th anniversary of the first printing of his book, “On the Origin of Species”, the American Society for Microbiology has invited Dr. Knoll to deliver the opening lecture, titled “Microbes and Earth History,” at the society’s <a href="http://gm.asm.org/" target="_blank">general meeting</a> in Philadelphia this year.</p>
<p>Before the dinosaurs, before trees and leaves, before trilobites, there were microbes. Vast, slimy layers of them covered the rocks and peppered the seas of the harsh, alien planet we now call Earth. Those slimy cells were our ancestors, and they played a defining role in changing that once-barren moonscape into the world we see today: a planet covered with diverse, striving life, topped by an oxygen-rich atmosphere. Dr. Knoll says he puts on his paleontologist’s hat and studies the fossil record to learn more about this ancient life, then he dons his geochemist’s hat to reconstruct Earth’s environmental history from the chemical signatures he finds in ancient sedimentary rocks. He weaves these two stories together to figure out how life has transformed the planet and how the planet has influenced the course of evolution.</p>
<p>In this interview, I talk with Dr. Knoll about what early earth must have looked like, his involvement with the Mars rover project, and how intelligent design concepts may well belong in high school curricula, but not in the context of science class.</p>
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MTS20 - Roberto Kolter - Bacillus Subtilis and Bacteria as Multicellular Organisms
<p><a href="http://micro.med.harvard.edu/faculty/kolter.html">Roberto Kolter </a>is a professor of Microbiology andMolecular Genetics at Harvard’s Medical School. Dr. Kolter’s research interests are broad, but he says his eclectic program boils down to an interest in the ecology and evolution of microbes, bacteria in particular, and on how these forces operate at the molecular level.</p>
<p>Although he’s worked in a number of different systems, lately Dr. Kolter is spending a lot of time with <span id="apture_prvw1" class="aptureLink"><span class="aptureLinkIcon" style="background-position: right -1350px;"> </span><a class="aptureLink snap_noshots" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacillus%20subtilis">Bacillus subtilis</a></span>, a modest little bacterium that doesn’t get the headlines of a wicked pathogen like Salmonella or a useful industrial workhorse like yeast. What it lacks in notoriety, B. subtilis makes up for in usefulness. According to Dr. Kolter, B. subtilis is an important source of industrial enzymes (as in laundry detergent) and, as a bacterial model, a prolific source of information on how some bacteria make spores and other diverse cell types. This ability to form different kinds of cells is intriguing to Dr. Kolter: B. subtilis cells can wear any of a number of different hats, depending on what is needed at any given moment. From spores to swimming cells to cells that wage chemical warfare on their neighbors, B. subtilis can do it all. Dr. Kolter and his colleagues are looking at the how and the why of this multiplicity.</p>
<p>In the interview, Dr. Merry Buckley talks with Dr. Kolter about what he finds interesting about B. subtilis, why we should start thinking about bacteria as multicellular organisms, and how he got involved in producing a book of poetry (poetry about microbes, that is).</p>
<p>Dr. Kolter also provided the photography for the book Germ Stories by Arthur Kornberg. To see a full description and pricing details, click the <a href="http://estore.asm.org/viewItemDetails.asp?ItemID=737">ASM estore</a> and pick up your copy today.</p>
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MTS19 - Ellen Jo Baron - The Challenges and Rewards of Working in the Developing World
<p>Dr. <a href="http://med.stanford.edu/profiles/Ellen_Baron/" target="_blank">Ellen Jo Baron</a> is a professor of pathology and director of clinical microbiology at Stanford University’s medical center in Palo Alto, California. A co-author of the authoritative <a href="http://estore.asm.org/viewItemDetails.asp?ItemID=691" target="_blank">Manual of Clinical Microbiology</a>, Dr. Baron and her staff in the clinical lab evaluate and advise in the development of new diagnostic technologies. Dr. Baron has also volunteered her time as a microbiology advisor in numerous hospitals and clinics in developing countries since 1996.</p>
<p>In a hospital, you have to be able to diagnose infections in order to treat patients, but hospitals in the developing world that are forced to get along with inadequate and ill-equipped microbiology labs have to treat infectious disease blindly, without full knowledge of which organism is to blame and which drugs will be most effective. These missteps cost lives. Dr. Baron, who normally works in a modern, fully-equipped western hospital, travels to hospitals and clinics in places like Cambodia and Nepal to train staff and organize clinical microbiology labs. She says it’s not always feel-good work for her: cumbersome bureaucracy and lack of money and equipment are constant challenges. But experiencing other cultures and getting out of her comfort zone help make the work rewarding.<br /> <br /> In this episode, Dr. Merry Buckley talks with Dr. Baron about her work at home and abroad, the kinds of problems she faces in under-resourced labs, and about how, as a result of her work in the developing world, she now knows more about sheep and goats than she ever really wanted to know.</p>
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MTS18 - Elizabeth Edwards - Cleaning Up Solvents in Groundwater
<p><a href="http://www.csb.utoronto.ca/faculty/edwards-elizabeth">Elizabeth Edwards</a> knows that nothing is simple or easy when it comes to cleaning up toxic waste, but Edwards, a professor of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry at the University of Toronto, is looking for ways to harness microbes to do our dirty work for us. Dr. Edward’s research focuses on the biodegradation of <a href="http://toxics.usgs.gov/investigations/chlorinated_solvents.html">chlorinated solvents</a> in the environment – the means by which microbes can actually make a living by eating our noxious waste.</p>
<p>Chlorinated solvents like trichloroethylene (TCE), perchloroethylene (PCE), and others, have a sordid history in the environment. They have long been used as degreasers and dry cleaning fluid, but before there were regulations about how to handle waste, manufacturers and dry cleaners dumped old, dirty solvents in evaporation ponds or out the back door of the facility. Some of the fluid dumped this way evaporated, but since chlorinated solvents are both dense and recalcitrant, much of the liquid seeped straight down to the groundwater. And stayed there. Among other projects, Dr. Edwards is looking at the ability of mixed cultures of bacteria to break down these solvents in a step-wise process, with the expectation that we’ll eventually be able to treat the contamination at some sites with injections of microbes.</p>
<p>In this interview, Dr. Merry Buckley talks with Dr. Edwards about why chlorinated solvents are such a difficult environmental problem, how working in environmental consulting for a time helped her realize where she wanted to focus her research, and why we might have to make some tough decisions when it comes to cleaning up the hundreds (thousands?) of solvent-contaminated sites in North America.</p>
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MTS17 - Stuart Levy, MD - Antibiotic Resistance and Biosecurity
<p>If you or someone you care about has ever had an antibiotic resistant infection, you know how dire that situation can be. <a title="Stuart Levy's Faculty Web Page" href="http://www.tufts.edu/med/microbiology/faculty/levy/" target="_blank">Stuart Levy</a>, a professor of microbiology at Tufts University in Boston, has centered his research around the theme of <a title="FDA's Antibiotic Resistance Informaton Page" href="http://www.fda.gov/oc/opacom/hottopics/anti_resist.html" target="_blank">antibiotic resistance</a> and he says there are few antibiotics in the pipeline for use on that inevitable day when our current infection-fighters are finally overcome. Dr. Levy is delivering the keynote address at <a title="ASM Biodefense Meeting 2009" href="http://www.asmbiodefense.org/" target="_blank">ASM’s Biodefense and Emerging Diseases Research Meeting</a> in Baltimore in February.</p>
<p>Antibiotic resistance may not be making big headlines these days, but that’s not because the threat is any less serious than before. Levy says he first became interested in antibiotics as a child, when he watched a course of antibiotics heal his twin brother, who suffered from an infection. Later, as a researcher at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, France, he learned that bacteria can swap around the ability to resist antibiotics, and that failing to manage a small problem with resistance can have some serious consequences down the line.</p>
<p>In this interview, I talked with Dr. Levy about his talk at the biodefense meeting, what antibiotic resistance has to do with biosecurity, and about why you should leave those bottles of antimicrobial soap on the shelves at the store.</p>
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MTS16 - Paul Keim, Ph.D. - The Science Behind the 2001 Anthrax Letter Attacks
<p><a href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/dir/paul/keim" target="_blank">Dr. Paul Keim</a> is a professor of biological sciences at Northern Arizona University, in Flagstaff, where his research program focuses on microbial forensics and the genomic analysis of <a title="pathogenic bacteria explained" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacterial_disease" target="_blank">pathogenic bacteria</a>. As an expert in <a title="(ie Anthrax) explained" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacillus_anthracis" target="_blank">Bacillus anthracis</a>, the bacterium responsible for anthrax, Dr. Keim participated in the FBI’s investigation into the anthrax letter attacks back in 2001.</p>
<p>Microbial forensics is a field that developed in response to the twin threats of biological warfare and biological terrorism. (What’s the difference between biological warfare and biological terrorism? Both have the potential to reach beyond the site of the attack and both are a menace to innocent, unarmed citizens. To me, there’s a fine line here. But I digress.)</p>
<p>Dr. Keim’s interest in microbial forensics arose out of his postdoctoral work at the University of Utah. After this training in phage recombination and genomics, Dr. Keim applied what he had learned about bacterial genetics in a collaboration with scientists working on resolving and identifying the various strains of B. anthracis. Fast forward to this past summer, when the F.B.I. revealed that Dr. Keim used his expertise on B. anthracis to help in the investigation that concluded a researcher at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) perpetrated the anthrax attacks. Dr. Keim, along with several other scientists who helped in the F.B.I.’s</p>
<p> </p>
<p>In this podcast, I talked with Dr. Keim about his work with the F.B.I., whether the payoffs of bioterrorism research are worth the costs, and about how the plague (yes, the Black Death) made its way to North American shores and continues to sicken about a dozen people every year.</p>
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MTS15 - Kathryn Boor - The Science of Foodborne Pathogens
<p><a href="http://www.foodscience.cornell.edu/cals/foodsci/research/labs/boor/bio-kboor.cfm" target="_blank">Dr. Kathryn Boor</a> is a professor and chair in the Food Science department at Cornell University, where she’s director of the <a href="http://www.foodscience.cornell.edu/cals/foodsci/research/labs/boor/bio-kboor.cfm" target="_blank">Food Safety Laboratory </a>- a biosecurity level 2 laboratory that facilitates research on foodborne pathogens. Her particular research interests lie in the “how” and “why” of pathogens and spoilage microbes in food. Boor is also the director of the <a title="Milk Quality Improvement Program" href="http://www.foodscience.cornell.edu/cals/foodsci/extension/milk-quality-improvement-program.cfm" target="_blank">Milk Quality Improvement Program</a> – a program funded by New York state to monitor and make recommendations to improve the quality of milk in the state.</p>
<p>When I think about the complicated way dairy products come to be on the shelf in my grocery store – farmers use machinery to extract milk from an animal that lives in a barn or a field; the milk is piped through long tubes to a tank on a truck that conveys the product to a plant that processes and divvies it up; the bottles and packages are put on another truck and carted to the store – it seems like a wonder dairy is ever safe to eat. But dairy is safe: CDC data indicate that less than 1% of foodborne illness outbreaks in the U.S. involve dairy products<sup>1</sup> <a id="refX" href="http://www.cdc.gov/foodborneoutbreaks/outbreak_data.htm" target="_blank"><sup>2</sup></a> .</p>
<p>Dr. Boor’s primary interest lies in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Listeria_monocytogenes" target="_blank">Listeria monocytogenes</a>, one of the few pathogens that is a problem in dairy, and most people who’ve heard of it associate it with unpasteurized soft cheese or cold cuts. Listeriosis is not as common or familiar as some other foodborne illnesses, but it is more often fatal than salmonellosis or botulism, and in a pregnant woman even a mild case can be deadly for her fetus. Dr. Boor’s research focuses on how this so-called “simple” organism is able to persist in some foods and overcome the stress of refrigeration and stomach acid to not only survive, but to make us really sick.</p>
<p>In this interview, I asked Dr. Boor about how she came to this particular niche in science, whether pasteurization is any better than keeping milk from getting contaminated in the first place, and what her trained eye for food safety looks out for when she’s buying food.</p>
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MTS14 - Moselio Schaechter - Successful Science Blogging and Hunting Mushrooms
<p><a href="http://www.bio.sdsu.edu/faculty/schaechter.htm" target="_blank">Moselio Schaechter</a> – known as Elio to his friends – is Distinguished Professor of Molecular Biology and Microbiology, Emeritus, at the Tufts University School of Medicine, and he’s currently an adjunct professor at San Diego State University and at the University of California at San Diego. Dr. Schaechter has had a long career in bacteriology and has authored or co-authored a number of <a title="List of textbooks by Dr. Schaechter on Amazon.com" href="http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=books&field-author=Moselio%20Schaechter&page=1" target="_blank">text books</a>, and is a former president of the <a title="American Society for Microbiology" href="http://www.asm.org/" target="_blank">American Society for Microbiology</a>. He lives in sunny San Diego now, where he lectures, attends meetings, and writes his blog, <a title="Small Things Considered Blog" href="http://www.smallthingsconsidered.us/" target="_blank">“Small Things Considered</a>”.</p>
<p>If you want an example of the ways the internet has changed public discourse, look to the blogs - you’re reading one now, after all, and how many blogs did you read 10 years ago? Blogs give authors a bullhorn free from profit-driven publishers, provide people with ideas, and even build communities through reader discourse. To be sure, not every blog is interesting or even readable, but there are many bloggers out there working hard and stimulating some profound discussions.</p>
<p>Those of us interested in the life microscopic are lucky to have Dr. Schaechter, who muses on the topics of interest to him and acts as host to other eminent scientists who write guest essays. With Small Things Considered, his goal is to express his own interest in various subjects while encouraging interest in others and kindling conversation and debate.</p>
<p>In my interview with Dr. Schaechter, we talk about what he gets out of being a blogger, what makes for a successful blog, and about how mushroom hunting in xeric Southern California usually involves a lot of hunting and few mushrooms.</p>
<p>Blogs and Websites mentioned in this episode include:</p>
<p><a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/loom/" target="_blank">The Loom by Carl Zimmer</a></p>
<p><a href="http://weblogs.madrimasd.org/microbiologia/" target="_blank">Esos Pequenos Bichitos</a></p>
<p><a href="http://bacterioblog.over-blog.com/" target="_blank">Le blog des bacteries et de l’evolution</a></p>
<p><a href="http://scienceblogs.com/aetiology/" target="_blank">Aetiology by Tara C. Smith</a></p>
<p><a href="http://microbiologybytes.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Microbiology Bytes</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.mykoweb.com/" target="_blank">The Registry of Mushrooms in Works of Art</a></p>
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MTS13 - Video Supplement - Proteopedia Video Guide
This is a video supplement to the audio podcast of Meet the Scientist episode 13 in which I interview Joel Sussman, Ph.D., a professor of structural biology at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. The video shows Sussman's Proteopedia.org in action. It is narrated by Eran Hodis, the graduate student, who, together with Professors Jaime Prilusky and Joel L. Sussman developed Proteopedia at the Weizmann Institute of Science.<div class="feedflare">
<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/meetthescientist?a=SRbYnXFCsOg:9W4ytd2prag:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/meetthescientist?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/meetthescientist?a=SRbYnXFCsOg:9W4ytd2prag:F7zBnMyn0Lo"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/meetthescientist?i=SRbYnXFCsOg:9W4ytd2prag:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/meetthescientist?a=SRbYnXFCsOg:9W4ytd2prag:V_sGLiPBpWU"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/meetthescientist?i=SRbYnXFCsOg:9W4ytd2prag:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/meetthescientist?a=SRbYnXFCsOg:9W4ytd2prag:qj6IDK7rITs"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/meetthescientist?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/meetthescientist?a=SRbYnXFCsOg:9W4ytd2prag:oBgE7isVTB0"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/meetthescientist?d=oBgE7isVTB0" border="0"></img></a>
</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/meetthescientist/~4/SRbYnXFCsOg" height="1" width="1"/>
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MTS13 - Joel Sussman - Proteopedia.org and Intrinsically Unstructured Proteins
<p><a href="http://www.weizmann.ac.il/home/joel/group/joel.html" target="_blank">Joel Sussman, Ph.D.</a> is a professor of structural biology at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel.<span> </span>In his research, Dr. Sussman is interested in elucidating the structures and functions of proteins, particularly those involved in the nervous system.<span> </span>He is also the lead scientist behind <a title="Proteopedia" href="http://www.proteopedia.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page" target="_blank">Proteopedia</a> – a new online protein structure encyclopedia.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">Scientific endeavors have historically been a one-way street: an investigator or lab makes a discovery, then delivers the good news to the rest of the community via publication.<span> </span>Nowadays, computers and the internet are enabling easier and more seamless means of collaboration and communication.<span> </span>Proteopedia, with which Dr. Sussman is greatly involved, automatically gathers and compiles information from multiple curated sources of information, but its more revolutionary side is the wiki tool, which enables registered users to contribute information themselves.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">In this interview with Dr. Sussman, I talked with him about his work with <a title="acetylcholinesterase" href="http://www.proteopedia.org/wiki/index.php/Acetylcholinesterase" target="_blank">acetylcholinesterase</a> and “intrinsically unstructured proteins” and about Proteopedia – how it works and about the possibility of misinformation making its way onto the site.<span> </span></p>
<div>The video extra shows Proteopedia in action. It is narrated by Eran Hodis, the graduate student, who, together with Professors Jaime Prilusky & Joel L. Sussman developed Proteopedia at the Weizmann Institute of Science.</div>
<p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/meetthescientist/~4/PDpzVALk0EA" alt="" width="1" height="1" /></p>
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MTS12 - Nancy Keller - Aspergillus and the Fungal Toxin Problem
<p><a href="http://www.medmicro.wisc.edu/department/faculty/keller.html" target="_blank">Nancy Keller</a> is a Professor of Bacteriology and Medical Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A mycologist, Dr. Keller works with a genus of fungi called Aspergillus – many of which are potent plant and human pathogens that produce deadly mycotoxins. Her research focuses on finding those aspects of Aspergillus species that make them effective as pathogens and toxin factories.</p>
<p>Tiny fungi cause big problems for agriculture and human health, and the U.S. alone spends millions of dollars every year to fight the fungi that attack crops. Aspergillus fungi, in particular, cause a problem for crop plants themselves, but the bigger concern is the mycotoxins they produce: aflatoxin is one of the most potent naturally-occurring toxins ever discovered. What’s more, aflatoxin and other Aspergillus toxins are carcinogenic. The bottom line? Exposure to large amounts of these fungal toxins can kill you quickly, and exposure to small amounts can kill you slowly.</p>
<p>On this episode, I talk with Dr. Keller about her work with Aspergillus, why we don’t even know how big the fungal toxin problem is, how reproduction and toxin-making are linked in these fungi, and how we may eventually use viruses as weapons against pathogenic fungi.</p>
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MTS11 - Daniel Lew - The Yeast Cell Cycle
<p>Daniel Lew is a professor of Pharmacology and Cancer Biology and of Genetics at the Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina. His research program focuses on cell cycle control in yeast, and how the cell cycle interacts with cell polarity.</p>
<p>Yeast cells may look simple, but inside every little single-cell package lurks an intricate creature that senses and responds cunningly to its surroundings. Dr. Lew has uncovered many of the secrets of the tiny yeast, and since yeast bear a striking resemblance to human cells, some of these facts could help us eventually conquer our own problems with the cell cycle, including cancer – a kind of cell division gone wild.</p>
<p>In this interview, I talk with Dr. Lew about how a yeast cell knows when to say “when” during budding, why he studies yeast at a medical school, and where his hard-to-discern accent really comes from (hint: it’s not a North Carolina accent).</p>
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MTS10 - Anthony Maurelli - Black Holes and Antivirulence Genes
<p>Tony Maurelli is a professor of microbiology and immunology in the F. Edward Hébert School of Medicine at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland. Dr. Maurelli’s major research interest lies in the genetics of bacterial pathogenesis – the genetic nuts and bolts of how bacteria infect humans and make us sick.</p>
<p>Dr. Maurelli’s work has uncovered “antivirulence genes” in Shigella flexneri, a major cause of dysentery and food borne illness. This is an interesting concept: antivirulence genes undermine pathogenicity, so they must be broken or dropped from the genome for a bacterium to take good advantage of a host and cause disease. These genes are a hindrance, so to become an effective pathogen, Shigella must stop using them.</p>
<p>In this interview, I talked with Dr. Maurelli about antivirulence genes, about whether the naming system for bacteria should be fixed, and about his favorite bacteria.</p>
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MTS9 - Stanley Falkow - 21st Century Microbe Hunter
<p><a href="http://med.stanford.edu/profiles/Stanley_Falkow/" target="_blank">Stanley Falkow</a> is a professor of Microbiology & Immunology at the Stanford School of Medicine. His research interests lie in bacterial pathogenesis – how bacteria cause infection and disease – and over the course of his career he has contributed fundamental discoveries to the field. Falkow received the Lasker prize this year for special achievement in medical science, and the <a title="Lasker Foundation Web Page" href="http://www.laskerfoundation.org/" target="_blank">Lasker Foundation</a> calls him “one of the great microbe hunters of all time”.</p>
<p>Molecular techniques (methods of analysis that rely on bacterial DNA) are now widely used for infectious disease diagnosis, thanks in large part to Falkow, who was among the first to apply an understanding of genes and virulence determinants to analyzing patient samples. He has published extensively in areas ranging from antibiotic resistance to food borne illness to microarrays. It is really difficult to compose interview questions for a scientist whose career has been as far-reaching and profoundly significant as Stan Falkow’s. Luckily for me, Dr. Falkow is a gracious conversationalist.</p>
<p>In this interview, I talked with Dr. Falkow about his prescient concerns about the dangers of using antibiotics as growth promoters in livestock, why Salmonella is so good at making you sick, and why students who are interested in science should follow their passion.</p>
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MTS8 - Rachel Whitaker - The Evolution of Sulfolobus
<p>Rachel Whitaker is an assistant professor of microbiology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she has developed a research program focused on the evolutionary ecology of microorganisms. Much of Dr. Whitaker’s work centers around a hyperthermophile found in geothermal springs: the archaeon Sulfolobus islandicus.</p>
<p>Evolution is not just history – it’s still in action today, molding humans, plants, animals and, of course, microbes, in ways we still don’t completely understand. One of Whitaker’s focus areas is archaea, a group of single-celled microbes that are found in some of the harshest environments on earth. By looking at how one variety of archaea, Sulfolobus, varies from place to place, Whitaker hopes to find whether Sulfolobus is adapting new characteristics to suit its habitats, and whether this kind of adaptation can help us explain why there are so many different kinds of microbes in the world.</p>
<p>In this interview, I asked Dr. Whitaker about the hot springs where she studies Sulfolobus, whether it’s hard to communicate with ecologists who work with bigger organisms, and about new discoveries she’s made related to an immune system in archaea.</p>
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MTS7 - Anthony Fauci - Managing Infectious Disease on a Global Scale
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">Dr. <a title="Dr. Anthony Fauci" href="http://www3.niaid.nih.gov/about/directors/biography/" target="_blank">Anthony Fauci</a> is the director of NIAID – the National Institutes for Allergy and Infectious Disease – where he is also Chief of the Laboratory of Immunoregulation.<span> </span>Dr. Fauci’s research interests lie primarily in the molecular mechanisms of HIV and AIDS, and he has published extensively on the interactions of HIV with the immune system.<span> </span>He’ll be speaking at the opening session of <a title="ICAAC" href="http://www.icaac.org/" target="_blank">ICAAC</a> – the <em><span>Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy </span></em><span>– on October 25 in Washington DC, where he’ll describe some of the remaining challenges in the fight against HIV, tuberculosis, and antibiotic resistant microbes.<span> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span>Dr. Fauci is not only a researcher, he is also an important player in science policy in the U.S.<span> </span>He was a primary architect of <a title="PEPFAR" href="http://www.pepfar.gov/" target="_blank">PEPFAR</a>, </span>the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, a program that received reauthorization and has a budget of $48 billion for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria around the world.<span> </span>In honor of his efforts to improve our understanding and treatment of HIV and AIDS, Dr. Fauci was recently awarded the <a title="Presidentail Medal of Freedom" href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/06/20080619-9.html" target="_blank">Presidential Medal of Freedom</a>, the nation’s highest civil award.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span>In this interview, I talked with Dr. Fauci about progress in managing infectious disease on a<span> </span>global scale, why it’s the “devil you don’t know” that is still the scariest infectious disease of all, and about the roles of abstinence education and condom awareness in PEPFAR.</span></p>
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MTS6 Bruce Rittmann - Microbes, Waste and Renewable Energy
<p><a href="http://www.biodesign.asu.edu/people/bios/bruce-rittmann/">Bruce Rittmann</a>, the Director of the Center for Environmental Biotechnology at the <a title="Center for Environmental Biotechnology at the Biodesign Institute of Arizona State" href="http://www.biodesign.asu.edu/" target="_blank">Biodesign Institute</a> of Arizona State, focuses his efforts on reclaiming contaminated water and producing renewable energy using microbes.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2004 and credited with pioneering development of biofilm fundamentals and contributing to their widespread use in the bioremediation of contaminated ecosystems. His research combines many disciplines of science, including engineering, microbiology, biochemistry, geochemistry and microbial ecology. Formerly with Northwestern University, Rittmann is also a leader in the development of the Membrane Biofilm Reactor, an approach that uses bacteria to destroy pollutants in water. The Membrane Biofilm Reactor is especially effective for removing perchlorate from drinking water, and it is being launched commercially.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In this podcast, I talk with Dr. Rittmann about the biofilm reactor process, the electricity hiding in our wastewater, and how we may some day grow fuel on the roofs of buildings.</p>
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MTS5 Brett Finlay - E.coli and the Human Gut
<p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><a title="Brett Finaly Homepage" href="http://www.finlaylab.msl.ubc.ca/" target="_blank">Brett Finlay</a> is a professor in the Michael Smith Laboratories, and the Departments of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and Microbiology and Immunology at the University of British Columbia. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">His research program focuses on E. coli, how it interacts with the cells of the human gut, and mouse models of E. coli-like infections. Dr. Finlay will speak at the <a title="ASM's 2nd Conference on Beneficial Microbes" href="http://www.asm.org/Meetings/index.asp?bid=52027" target="_blank">conference on Beneficial Microbes</a> in San Diego this October, where he’ll describe the results of some of his latest research, which examines how E. coli infections effect the microbes that live in our guts. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">Sadly, outbreaks of <a title="Escherichia coli info." href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escherichia_coli" target="_blank"><em>Escherichia coli</em></a> infections in this country are common – just this summer a huge E. coli outbreak in Oklahoma sickened nearly 300 people and sent 67 of them to the hospital. Clearly, in an outbreak, not everyone is effected equally. When lots of people are exposed to E. coli, why do some of those people walk away unharmed while others wind up in the I.C.U.? Dr. Finlay would say part of the answer, at least, probably lies in which microbes live in our intestine. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">In this podcast, I talked with Dr. Finlay about why we have so many different kinds of microbes in our guts, what happens to them when E. coli strikes, and why we have a long way to go before probiotics offer help – and not just hope. </span></p>
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MTS4 David Relman - The Human Microbiome
<p><a href="http://med.stanford.edu/profiles/David_Relman/" target="_blank">David Relman</a> is a Professor of Medicine and of Microbiology & Immunology at Stanford University, and his research program focuses on the human microbiome – the microbial communities of bacteria, viruses, and other organisms that thrive on and in the human body. He’ll be speaking at ASM’s <a title="ASM's 2nd Conference on Beneficial Microbes" href="http://www.asm.org/Meetings/index.asp?bid=52027" target="_blank">conference on Beneficial Microbes</a> in San Diego this October, where he’ll talk about our personal microbial ecosystems, how far we’ve come in research and how far we have to go.</p>
<p>Since <a title="Louis Pasteur" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Pasteur" target="_blank">Louis Pasteur</a> first deduced that microbes are to blame for infectious disease, doctors and scientists alike have mostly seen infection as warfare between a pathogen and the human body. Dr. Relman sees things a little differently. To him, the complex communities of microbes that line our skin, mouths, intestines, and other orifices (ahem) are also involved in this battle, interacting with pathogens and with our bodies, and these interactions help determine how a fracas plays out.</p>
<p>In this interview, I asked Dr. Relman about our personal ecosystems of microbes, whether we’ll ever be able to understand and predict what these communities do, and about the sometimes distressing effects of oral antibiotics on our guts. We also talked about whether being MTV’s Rock Doctor back in the 1990’s had an impact on his other professional pursuits.</p>
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MTS3 Ute Hentschel - Symbiotic Sea Sponges
<p><span style="font-size: small;">Ute Hentschel is a professor of <a title="chemical ecology" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_ecology" target="_blank">chemical ecology</a> at the University of Würzburg in Germany. Her research focuses on characterizing the microbial communities associated with marine sponges, the diversity of these symbionts and their activities.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: small;">On this episode, I talk with Ute Hentschel about her research on the microbes</span><span style="font-size: small;"> that </span><span style="font-size: small;">live on and in sea sponges – those squishy, colo</span><span style="font-size: small;">rful residents </span><span style="font-size: small;">of coral reefs</span><span style="font-size: small;">.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: small;">Dr. Hentschel describes some of the utterly unique microbes that are only found in sponges, what those microbes get from living in a sponge hotel, and why it’s nice to have a study site in the Bahamas. </span></p>
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MTS2 - Seth Darst - RNA polymerase
<p><a title="Seth Darst Website" href="http://www.rockefeller.edu/research/abstract.php?id=32" target="_blank">Seth </a><a title="Seth Darst Website" href="http://www.rockefeller.edu/research/abstract.php?id=32" target="_blank">D</a><a title="Seth Darst Website" href="http://www.rockefeller.edu/research/abstract.php?id=32" target="_blank">a</a><a title="Seth Darst Website" href="http://www.rockefeller.edu/research/abstract.php?id=32" target="_blank">rs</a><a title="Seth Darst Website" href="http://www.rockefeller.edu/research/abstract.php?id=32" target="_blank">t</a> is a professor of Molecular Biophysics at the Rockefeller University in New York city, where his research centers on <a title="RNA polymerase " href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNA_polymerase" target="_blank">RNA polymerase</a>, the enzyme at the heart of a cell’s ability to make protein from a set of DNA instructions.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">In this interview, I talk with Dr. Darst about how he got his start in research, whether computers will eventually be able to predict complex protein structures, and why eager young scientists shouldn’t miss their chance at postdoctoral training.</p>
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MTS1 Ralph Tanner - The Future of Biofuels
<p><a href="http://www.ou.edu/cas/botany-micro/faculty/tanner.html" target="_blank">Ralph Tanner</a>, a professor of microbiology at the University of Oklahoma, focuses his research on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaerobic_organism">anaerobes</a> in the environment and putting those bacteria to use in industry.</p>
<p>He develops useful microbial catalysts for biofuel production from sustainable crops and has extended our knowledge of microbial diversity by isolating a number of new genera and species with novel physiologies. He helped define the phylogeny of bacteria.</p>
<p>In this podcast, I talk with Dr. Tanner about his work producing biofuels from burnt plant material, the future of biofuels in the U.S., whether bacterial systematics might be forced to change in light of new research on recombination, and about his approach to teaching microbiology.</p>
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