Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Michael Schmidt, Elio Schaechter and Michele Swanson.

The TWiM team discusses how measles vaccination protects against other infectious diseases, and links between bacterial biofilms and colon cancer.

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Measles vaccination prevents all-cause infectious disease (Science)

Master of contagion (The Loom)

Video: Measles incidence to immunomodulation (Science)

FAQ: Adult vaccines

Metabolism links biofilms and colon cancer (Cell Metab)

Scripps Center for Metabolomics

Scripps metabolite database

Image credit

Sponsors for this episode: SciMedSolutions, ICAAC-ICC

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 at microbeworld.org and tag them with twim.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Michael Schmidt, Elio Schaechter and Michele Swanson.

The TWiM team is amazed by the ocelloid, and an evolutionary battle for iron between mammalian transferrin and bacterial transferrin-binding protein.

Subscribe to TWiM (free) on iTunes, Stitcher, RSS, or by email. You can also listen on your mobile device with the Microbeworld app.

• A unicellular camera-type eye structure (PLoS One)
• Escape from iron piracy (Science)
• Iron in infection and immunity (Cell Host Micr)
• Nutritional immunity (Nat Rev Micro)
• Evolutionary Path (Matthew Barber)
• Image credit: Janet Iwasa
• Sponsors for this episode: SciMedSolutions, ICAAC-ICC

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 at microbeworld.org and tag them with twim.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Michael Schmidt, Elio Schaechter and Michele Swanson.

The TWiM team discusses evidence that serotonin synthesis is regulated by spore-forming members of the gut microbiota.

Subscribe to TWiM (free) on iTunes, via RSS feed, by email or listen on your mobile device with the Microbeworld app.

• When antibiotic resistance in vitro falls short (STC)
• Gut microbiota control serotonin in mice (Cell)
• Serotonin biosynthesis (Wikipedia)
• Microbial endocrinology (STC)
• Image credit
• Sponsors for this episode: SciMedSolutions, Jmbe.asm.org, ICAAC-ICC

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 at microbeworld.org and tag them with twim.

Image: Serotonin temporary tattoo by flickr user: ChezShawna

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Michael Schmidt, Elio Schaechter and Michele Swanson.

The TWiMers discuss how aroma helps disperse yeast cells on insect vectors, and evidence that MRSA is transmitted within households.

Subscribe to TWiM (free) on iTunes, via RSS feed, by email or listen on your mobile device with the Microbeworld app.

• Aroma promotes yeast dispersal on flies (Cell Rep)
• MRSA is transmitted within households (mBio)
• FAQ: The threat of MRSA (AAM)
• Image credit
• Letters read
  on TWiM 101

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 at microbeworld.org and tag them with twim.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Michael Schmidt, Elio Schaechter and Jo Handelsman.

The TWiM team celebrates 100 episodes with a Talmudic question, and discussion of how a single mutation alters bacterial host tropism.

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• A single mutation alters bacterial tropism (Nat Gen)
• Talmudic question #104 (Small Things Considered)
• Principles of Microbial Diversity (ASM Press)
• Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education
• Letters read on TWiM 100

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 at microbeworld.org and tag them with twim.

Image: Yellow colonies of S. aureus on a blood agar plate, note regions of clearing around colonies caused by lysis of red cells in the agar By: HansN. on wikimedia. From the study (Nat Gen) "...only a single naturally occurring nucleotide mutation was required and sufficient to convert a human-specific S. aureus strain into one that could infect rabbits."

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello

Guests: Maria Julia Marinissen, Edward H. You, and David R. Howell

Vincent meets up with Maria, Edward, and David at the ASM Biodefense and Emerging Infections Research meeting to talk about alternative careers for scientists.

Subscribe to TWiM (free) on iTunes, via RSS feed, by email or listen on your mobile device with the Microbeworld app.

• ASM Biodefense meeting
• FBI Biological Countermeasures Unit
• Office of Policy and Planning
• Division of Medical Countermeasures Strategy and Requirements
• Division of International Health Security

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 at microbeworld.org and tag them with twim.

The TWiM crew ponders the question of how a bacterium finds its middle when dividing, then divulge the transfer of interbacterial antagonism genes to eukaryotes, where they may function in innate defense.

Links for this episode:

• Size independent symmetric division (Nat Commun)

• How does a bacterium find its middle? (Nat Struct Biol)

• Genes transferred from bacteria augment eukaryotic defenses (Cell)

• Antibacterial gene transfer (eLife)

• Letters read on TWiM #98 on TWiM 98

Visit microbeworld.org/twim for complete shownotes and more.

The TWiM team reveal how bacteria in a shipworm’s gills help digest wood in the gut, and an approach that identifies a new antibiotic from the soil.

Links for this episode:

• Gill bacteria enable a novel digestive strategy (PNAS)

• Killing bacteria without resistance (Nature)

• An irresistable newcomer (Nature)

• Peptidoglycan synthesis animation

• 10 x 20 initiative (IDSA)

• Longitude Prize

Visit microbeworld.org/twim for more.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello.

Special guest: Rob Knight

Vincent meets up with Rob Knight to talk about the technology that has fueled his drive to sequence the Earth and its inhabitants.

Check out the Microbeworld app.

• Microbes en masse (Nature)
• Obesity alters gut microbial ecology (PNAS)
• Sharing microbiome with dogs (eLife)
• Earth microbiome project (BMC Biology)
• Stability of gut micobiota (Science)
• Gut microbes and the brain (J Neurosci)

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 at microbeworld.org and tag them with twim.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello.

Special guest: Stanley Maloy

Vincent meets up with Stan Maloy on the campus of San Diego State University to talk about his career in microbiology and his work as Dean of Science.

• Maloy lab
• Salmonella.org
• Microbial genetics course page
• Typhoid Mary

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 at microbeworld.org and tag them with twim.