Am hoping #tedmed security at the Kennedy Center lets me in w/ my friends

Amazing - Renaissance Hotel in DC has decorated lobby w/ giant microbes #tedmed

See the full gallery on Posterous

Social Biology of Microbes 2012 #SocialMicrobes12 wrapup via Storify

Just got back from a meeting on the "Social Biology of Microbes". Here are some notes from my trip and from the talks at the meeting, done via Storify. Here it is as a slideshow:

And here it is a a full scrollable presentation

Jack Gilbert @gilbertjacka clarifies comments at #AAASMtg re: opening windows, cleanliness & microbes

Just got this to post from my college colleague Jack Gilbert in regard to some comments he made to the press at the AAAS Meeting a few days ago.  He sent this in part in response to some news stories that came out of the press conference we had at the meeting (e.g., see Florence Nightingale approach 'could help fight infection in ..., Open hospital windows to stem spread of infections, says ... and others).  And I encouraged him to consider whether or not he needed to clarify some of his comments - and here is his response.

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A confession, lesson and retraction
By Jack A. Gilbert

At the AAAS 2012 annual meeting on Friday, I was involved in a press conference to announce the initial results and ideology for the Earth Microbiome Project (http://www.earthmicrobiome.org). Following the press conference we went to another room, where we were openly discussing these concepts with the reporters. Several reporters asked me to comment on the potential impact of this research in the medical sphere. At which point I started to discuss some excellent research by Jessica Green (http://biology.uoregon.edu/people/green) regarding her recent evidence that improved ventilation in hospital wards reduced the airborne abundance of organisms that were related to pathogens. I showed these reporters the paper
(http://www.nature.com/ismej/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ismej2011211a.html) and asked them to discuss this with Jessica Green.

I then proceeded to discuss some current research we are doing at University of Chicago that is looking at the impact of having a natural microbial community on surfaces to reduce the likelihood that pathogens can establish in that environment. Specifically we are exploring whether 'good bacteria' can be used as a barrier to outcompete 'bad bacteria', I suggested that this was testing the hypothesis outlined by Florence Nightingale.

To this end I said, that maybe instead of sterilizing every surface in a hospital we could explore a different strategy. There is however currently only circumstantial evidence to support my claims, and I could have done a much better job in making clear that I was discussing an idea - not something for which there was evidence.

I am sorry for my indiscretion and hyperbole, and hope that I didn't cause any groups or individuals concern or worry about this topic. These were concepts being discussed, specifically that by using the EMP we could explore ecological dynamics that could lay the groundwork to help determine if a community could play the role of a barrier against infection.

I want to stipulate that I believe hospitals should be cleaning, and I believe that surgeons should scrub and use the sterile method. To be clear, I wanted to state that 'good' bacteria could in the future play a role in reducing the instances of hospital borne infection, and that this is something we should investigate. People should wash their hands after the toilet, and wash their hands when they are sick; there is nothing wrong with being clean.

Draft post cleanup #5: Best Science Paper Endings Award: Linking the Kama Sutra & Amoebas

OK - I am cleaning out my draft blog post list.  I start many posts and don't finish them and then they sit in the draft section of blogger.  Well, I am going to try to clean some of that up by writing some mini posts.  Here is #5:

I was reading an article on MSNBC: Amoebas: Sexier than anyone knew - Technology & science - Science - LiveScience - msnbc.com

The article discusses a paper: "The chastity of amoebae: re-evaluating evidence for sex in amoeboid organisms" from the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.  The paper is freely available and it is definitely scientifically interesting.  But the last sentence is phenomenal and deserves some sort of prize

"When discussing the sex of amoeboid protists, the existing evidence does not evoke chastity but rather Kama Sutra"

So I am starting a new award here - the "Best Science Paper Endings Award"

Draft post cleanup #4: Gut microbes and cancer

Yet another post in my "draft blog post cleanup" series.  Here is #4:

Interesting article in the Scientist August 1, 2011:
Sharing the Bounty | The Scientist by Michelle Rooks and Wendy Garrett.

It is based on an article from the journal F1000 reports by the same authors.

The article in essence reviews other studies that suggest a possible link between microbes in one's gut and the risk of development of certain cancers.  It is worth a look.

See abstract below:



Abstract:

Gut microbes are essential components of the human organism—helping us metabolize food into energy, produce micronutrients, and shape our immune systems. Having a particular pattern of gut microbes is also increasingly being linked to medical conditions including obesity, inflammatory bowel disease, and diabetes. Recent studies now indicate that our resident intestinal bacteria may also play a critical role in determining one's risk of developing cancer, ranging from protection against cancer to promoting its initiation and progression. Gut bacteria are greatly influenced by diet and in this review we explore evidence that they may be the missing piece that explains how dietary intake influences cancer risk, and discuss possible prevention and treatment strategies.

Storification of my notes/tweets from #UCDavis CLIMB Symposium "The infant gut microbiome: prebiotics, probiotics and establishment"

I made a Storify posting for the CLIMB Symposium I participated in yesterday. First I am reposting my summary of what the symposium was about which I posted the day before the meeting:

There is a symposium tomorrow at UC Davis organized by a undergraduates in the CLIMB program.  CLIMB stands for "Collaborative Learning at the Interface of Mathematics and Biology (CLIMB)" and is a program that emphasizes hands-on training using mathematics and computation to answer state-of-the-art questions in biology.  A select group of undergraduates participate in the program and this summer the students had to do some sort of modelling project.  Somehow I managed to convince them to do work on human gut microbes.  And they have done a remarkable job.  

As part of their summer work, they organized a symposium on the topic and their symposium takes place tomorrow.  Details are below. 

The Infant Gut Microbiome: Prebiotics, Probiotics, & Establishment 

• Jonathan Eisen, UC Davis “DNA and the hidden world of microbes”
• Mark Underwood, UC Davis “Dysbiosis and necrotizing enterocolitis”
• Ruth Ley, Cornell University “Host-microbial interactions and metabolic syndrome” 
• CLIMB 2010 cohort “Breast milk metabolism and bacterial coexistence in the infant microbiome”
• David Relman, Stanford University “Early days: assembly of the human gut microbiome during childhood" 
• Bruce German, UC Davis

The only major issue for me is I am losing my voice.  So we will see how this goes.  Though I note I have gotten some very sage advice on how to treat my voice problem via the magic of twitter.  If I do not collapse I will also be tweeting/posting about the other talks during the day. 

Anyway - here is the storification: