Adventure Travel Guide to the Microbial World

When humans engineered synthetic polymers that were virtually impossible to break down, we thought we’d achieved a major victory over the pesky microbes that were shortening the shelf lives of our favorite products. But sometimes winning a fight leads to a whole host of unexpected consequences: in this case, an unmanaged plastic waste crisis threatening the health of humans and the planet we live on.

Midway through our journey through the microbial world, Dr. Maria Hadjifrangiskou joined the class on February 3rd, 2023, to narrate a portion of our tour “Warzone Travel: Bacterial Fight Club.” In this session Dr. Hadjifrangiskou discussed the amazing ability of some bacteria to shoot protein daggers into other cells as a form of attack or defense.

Vincent Racaniello, Elio Schaechter, Michele Swanson, and Michael Schmidt hosted episode 255 of the podcast “This Week in Microbiology” entitled "Fleaing the Plague.” During the episode, they discussed two papers published in late 2021. The first paper by Kehe et al.

Todd OA, Fidel PL Jr, Harro JM, Hilliard JJ, Tkaczyk C, Sellman BR, Noverr MC, Peters BM. Candida albicans Augments Staphylococcus aureus Virulence by Engaging the Staphylococcal agr Quorum Sensing System. mBio. 2019 Jun 4;10(3):e00910-19. doi: 10.1128/mBio.00910-19. PMID: 31164467; PMCID: PMC6550526.

In Episode 263 of the This Week in Microbiology Podcast, the hosts discussed the recent findings of two 2022 papers.

I recently read a blog post by Christy Clutter that discusses the role of fungi in Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). IBD is characterized by immune hyperactivation that damages the intestine of about 3 million Americans, and includes Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. Although 240 genetic variations associated with increased likelihood of IBD development have been identified, epidemiological studies show that strong environmental factors such as diet, antibiotic exposure, and smoking can affect individual susceptibility.

Speaker Background:  Dr. Irene Newton, PhD, specializes in mechanisms of symbiosis; specifically, the molecular mechanisms of host-microbe symbiotic interactions. She obtained her PhD from Harvard University and conducted postdoctoral research at Tufts University. She is currently an associate professor at Indiana University.

            The Western-style diet is chock full of high fat, processed and refined foods that often cause systemic damage to the human body. One particular effect that high fat foods have on the body involves the microbes in the gastrointestinal tract. Many studies have shown the association between the colonization of a subset of microbes in the gut and colorectal and gastric cancer onset. The question of interest is: can what we eat really lead to the onset of gastrointestinal cancer?

Mosquitoes beat humans as the world’s deadliest animals.1 This is not because they directly kill people, but instead they are really good at being vectors, which are organisms that act as vehicles for pathogens to transfer between hosts.

            On episode 258 of the podcast “This Week in Microbiology”, Vincent Racaniello, Elio Schaechter, Michele Swanson, and Michael Schmidt discussed two main topics focused on anti-genetic variation within dengue virus serotypes and how a novel mRNA vaccine could induce antibodies against tick proteins to prevent transmission of Lyme disease.