MicrobeWorld Video

The master ingredient in beer is yeast -- a microbe -- and every step in the brewing process helps the yeast do its job better. Watch this live streamed video from the American Society of Microbiology to learn more about how microbes are selected, grown, and manipulated in modern breweries to develop a wide variety of flavors and textures!

Speakers include ...

Dr. Charles Bamforth, University of California, Davis

Rebecca Newman, Dogfish Head Craft Brewery

Resources

The Microbiology of Beer Poster (.pdf)

FAQ: If the Yeast Ain't Happy, Ain't Nobody Happy: The Microbiology of Beer, February 2013 (.pdf)

Vincent and Michael recorded this episode at the 53rd ICAAC in Denver, where they spoke with James Gern and James Johnson about rhinoviruses and extra-intestinal pathogenic E. coli.

Links for this Episode:

Virus/allergen interactions in asthma (Curr Allerg Asth Rep)

Features of rhinovirus C (Microbes Infect)

Multidrug resistant ExPec in animals and food (Vet Micro)

STS131 an emerging pathogen among veterans (Clin Inf Dis)

Send your microbiology questions and comments (email or mp3 file) to [email protected], or call them in to 908-312-0760. You can also post articles that you would like us to discuss atmicrobeworld.org and tag them with twim.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello and Robert Garcea

Vincent and Robert recorded this episode at the 53rd ICAAC in Denver, where they talked about polyomaviruses.

Links for this episode:

A cornucopia of human polyomaviruses (Nat Rev Micro)Polyoma assembly factories in nucleus (PLoS Path)Overprinting gene in Merkel cell polyomavirus (PNAS)Human JCV as population marker (PLoS One)Letters read on TWiV 250Weekly Science Picks

Robert - The Panic Virus by Seth MnookinVincent - Aliens chestburster behind the scenes

Listener Pick of the Week

Adam - Virology Fact of the DayChristophe - dr Karl

Send your virology questions and comments (email or mp3 file) to [email protected]

Dr. Jeffrey Almond began his career as an academic virologist studying influenza. Eventually Jeffrey started his own lab and began studying picornaviruses working on an oral polio vaccine strain.

Following twenty years in academics including major contributions in the eradication of polio worldwide, Jeffrey transitioned into a career in industry working on vaccine development at Sanofi Pasteur.

In March of 2013, Jeffrey was at the Society for General Microbiology's Spring conference to give the Colworth Prize Lecture awarded biennially for an outstanding contribution in an area of applied microbiology. Jeffrey's talk was titled: Vaccines R&D: challenges for the 21st century.

On this episode, Vincent Racaniello talks with Dr. Almond about the future of vaccines, his transition from academia to industry and his prize lecture.

David Bhella, Ph.D., MRC Centre for Virus Research, accepts the Peter Wildy Prize for Microbiology Education, awarded annually by the Society for General Microbiology for an outstanding contribution to microbiology education.

Dr. David Bhella studies the structural components of viruses. David applies "the techniques of electron-cryomicroscopy and image analysis to the study of viruses.

In addition to his research, David participates, together with the Glasgow Science Centre, in public outreach to help teach students the processes behind his science.

Due to this work, David received the 2013 Peter Wildy prize for Microbiology Education. David's acceptance speech detailed his work with students as well as the stunning images he has produced through his work in electron-cryomicroscopy in particular a project he did, together with artist Murray Robertson, called Molecular Machines which features 3D images from virus research, animated and set to music.

On this episode, Vincent Racaniello talks with David about the Wildy Prize, his work with electron-cryomicroscopy, public outreach via the DNA workshop and his passion for combining science and art.

How can something too small to be seen with the naked eye be powerful enough to bring down something like the U.S. Government? It turns out that microbes, mostly invisible, have the extraordinary capacity to affect our lives – through outbreaks of disease and the spread of fear. Twice in history, microbes have even brought the U.S. Government to a halt!

Join us at the D.C. headquarters of the American Society for Microbiology to learn more about the Yellow Fever outbreak of 1792 that caused the fledgling Congress to flee and the Anthrax scare of 2001 that also shut down government buildings and agencies. 

Guest speakers include ...

Dr. Marshall Bloom, Rocky Mountain Laboratories, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease

Dr. Douglas Beecher, Federal Bureau of Investigation

Jonathan Eisen is an evolutionary biologist, currently working at University of California, Davis and is the academic editor-in-chief of the open-access journal PLoS Biology.

On this episode, Jonathan talks about "evolvability," the probability that organisms can invent new functions. To do this, he has been using genome data in conjunction with experimental information to try and understand the mechanisms by which new functions have originated.

Another area of interest for Eisen is the "built environment." We live and work in buildings or structures which are non-natural environments, new to microbes. These "new" environments represent a controlled system in which to study the rules by which microbial communities form.

Jonathan is interested in these environments as basic science vehicle and he shares the importance of studying the built environment for science and human health.

Finally Jonathan explains his interest in "open science," the ways in which science is shared. At it's core, Eisen wants to leverage cheaper technologies to accelerate the progress of science in a positive way.

This episode was recorded at the American Association for the Advancement of Science Meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia on February 18, 2012.

Vincent, Elio and Michael recorded this episode of This Week in Microbiology before an audience at the 2013 General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in Denver, Colorado, where they spoke with Andrew Camilli, Ferric Fang, Suzanne Fleiszig, and Michelle Swanson about their research on a phage system for evading innate immunity, retractions of research papers, bacterial infections of the eye, and cytoplasmic defenses against intracellular bacteria.

2012 saw a surge of West Nile Virus infections, particularly in the central United States. What exactly is West Nile Virus and why do outbreaks occur?

Join us at ASM headquarters to learn more about the biology of this fascinating virus - how it moves between hosts, how the disease is diagnosed and treated, and how outbreaks can potentially be prevented.

West Nile virus was first detected in North America until 1999 when an outbreak occurred in New York City. In the next five years, West Nile virus swept across the continent, reaching the Pacific shore in 2004. Like other Flaviviruses, West Nile is an "arthropod-borne virus" or "arbovirus". Its transmission and the completion of its life cycle critically depends on the feeding activities of mosquitos, who transmit the virus as they feed on the blood of infected animals Despite the incidence of infection among humans, however, Homo sapiens are actually dead-end hosts for the West Nile virus. Indeed, birds are the primary amplifying hosts and their migratory patterns are thought to have promoted the rapid spread of the virus to new habitats. 

Guest speakers include:

Dr. Lyle Petersen 

Lyle R. Petersen, M.D., M.P.H., has served as the director of the Division of Vector-Borne Diseases since 2004. Dr. Petersen began his training at the University of California, San Diego where he received an undergraduate degree in biology. He then studied medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. After medical school, Dr. Petersen completed an internship and residency in internal medicine at Stanford University, CDC's Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) applied epidemiology training program, CDC's Preventive Medicine Residency Program, and a masters of public health program at Emory University. He served in several positions at CDC before joining the Division of Vector-borne Diseases, first as Deputy Director for Science and then Director. He is the author of more than 175 scientific publications and has received a number of scientific awards. His current research focuses on the epidemiology of arboviral and bacterial vector-borne zoonoses.

Dr. Roberta DeBiasi 

Roberta Lynn DeBiasi, MD, FIDSA, is Associate Professor of Pediatrics at George Washington University School of Medicine, Acting Chief and Attending Physician in the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Children's National Medical Center, and investigator at Children's Research Institute in the Center for Translational Science in Washington, D.C. A fellow of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) and a member of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society (PIDS), she is also a past recipient of IDSA's Young Investigator Award.

Dr. DeBiasi's research expertise includes basic science as well as clinical/translational research in several areas. She is currently the Principal Investigator for several clinical research projects and trials, focusing on improved treatments for viral encephalitis, influenza, neonatal herpes simplex virus, congenital cytomegalovirus, and adenovirus in normal and immunocompromised children. An active investigator in the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID) Collaborative Antiviral Study Group, through the National Institutes of Health (NIH), she also performs research on community acquired pneumonia and hospital acquired infections with multiple drug resistant organisms. Her basic research focused on mechanisms of viral pathogenesis and the development of new treatments for viral myocarditis. She is the author of original research, review articles, and book chapters focusing on severe viral infections, including viral myocarditis, encephalitis, meningitis, West Nile Virus, and adenovirus in patients with compromised immune systems.

Dr. DeBiasi also treats immunocompetent and immunocompromised children hospitalized with severe infections at Children's National Medical Center in Washington.