It’s getting closer to the General Meeting of the American Society of Microbiology in New Orleans (May 22-25).  We are excited to be authoring two posters this year. 
We are also very pleased to announce that the undergraduate student who is the primary author of the second poster, Joe Lahti, from the University of Minnesota was awarded [...]

This month we talked with Dr. Christine Salomon, Assistant Professor at the Center for Drug Design in the University of Minnesota.  Dr. Salomon’s work intersects chemistry and microbial ecology in the hunt for interesting new natural products with far reaching potential applications.  While much effort has been expended in searching for organisms on the surface [...]

Metagenomic analysis of environmental diversity is an area of research that continues to rapidly expand in microbiology. Approaches to analyze DNA or RNA samples from soil, water, air, and biofilms involve amplification of the entire 16S rRNA sequences and then analysis of the content and abundance of microbes present.  Many researchers are using next generation sequencing for identification of [...]

 When I was a graduate student at the Medical College of Virginia, many of the microbiologists in my department were very active in the local ASM.  Our local ASM provided opportunities to graduate students and postdocs to present their work to an outside audience of scientists from the surrounding universities and a chance to set up collaborations with [...]

I spend a lot of time reading internet news and blogs to stay on top of current research. In the course of my web surfing, I have found some really great scientific sites for microbiology news and fun. I wanted to share with you my favorite places to visit and let me know what sites you [...]

One of Dr. Janet Jansson’s many ongoing projects, and a big focus in microbiology over the last few years has been the study of the human gut microbiome. As ASM 2010 draws near, you can be sure that human microbiome research is an area that will get a lot of attention.
I thought it would be a good time to review [...]

Here are the answers to last week’s microbiology trivia game. Thanks to all who played. Your t-shirts are on the way. Have a great week!
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Enjoy this scientific spring scavenger hunt and find the answers to these 10 questions on the history of microbiology.  The birth of microbiology revolved around many key discoveries beginning around the mid to late 1600’s. These discoveries [...]

MO BIO Laboratories is an ardent supporter of science education at all levels.  So when we heard about the pioneering soil microbiology classes being taught by Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology, & Molecular Genetics at UCLA, Erin Sanders-Lorenz, we had to know more.

In an ideal world, we would have time to read every great paper coming out in all the microbiology journals each month.  Instead we have to focus our reading on the topics that directly impact our research. But reading papers from other fields can often help us to find new methods or generate ideas for our projects [...]

In a previous article I wrote a short primer on soil molecular biology, introducing some of the issues surrounding isolation of DNA and RNA from soil samples, such as PCR inhibitors and lysis considerations. Today I will go into greater detail on the isolation of DNA from microbes in soil and how to optimize your [...]