Many thanks to Russell Neches from the Jonathan Eisen Lab at UC Davis for sending us this great instructional video for using sterivex water filters in the field. And many thanks for giving MO BIO and the PowerWater Sterivex DNA Isolation Kit a shout out in the comments!
Here it is, if you’ve never used a [...]

We’ve been working hard this last month in preparation for the 2011 ASM meeting that just passed. It was a great event and we very much enjoyed meeting everyone at our booth. We love talking to you and hearing feedback and comments about the products.
At ASM this year we introduced a new product to the [...]

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 [...]

I’ve had the great pleasure of working directly with this week’s featured scientist, Bradley Tolar. I met Bradley at the ISME conference in 2010 and was intrigued by all of the exciting marine microbiology work under study in the Hollibaugh lab at the University of Georgia.  Since then we’ve been collaborating on projects together.  One of  them involves evaluating [...]

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 [...]

As the U.S. struggles with the after effects of the oil spill on tourism, animal health, and food safety due to the largest environmental disaster in U.S. history, microbiologists are stuggling to determine the scope of damage to microbial diversity in the ocean water and sediment.
The explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig on April 20th, 2010 that resulted in the [...]

This week we’ve had a lot of calls and emails from people going down to the Gulf to collect oil contaminated water samples, all asking for the same advice: how do I store water filters collected in the field for later extraction of DNA when I get back to the lab? What is the best practice?  Today’s article [...]

In a previous article, we reviewed a paper that investigated the microbial communities living in showerhead biofilms coming from the municipal water supply. This week, we’ll take another look at what’s living in municipal drinking water and this time in Phoenix, Arizona.  This new 2010 paper from the Journal of Environmental Quality takes a close look at the [...]

‘Tis the season to be jolly and at MO BIO Labs, we are a merry crew.  A lighthearted and cheerful atmosphere permeates our halls all year round but it is especially strong during the holiday season.  As we look back on our accomplishments in 2009, with products such as PowerWater, PowerFood, and LifeGuard, we are thankful to all [...]

We speak with many scientists each week who are working with filtered water for the isolation of microbial DNA and RNA. Water samples are difficult because of their typically low biomass (depending on the water source) and because these samples are precious.
Why is molecular research on microbes in water difficult?
For some people, getting back to [...]