This Week in Microbiology

• 351: Resistance Reboot

  TWiM discusses the use of bacteriophage-loaded microneedle patches for targeted and minimally disruptive foodborne pathogen decontamination, and a conjugal gene drive-like system that efficiently suppresses antibiotic resistance in bacteria.

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  Links for this episode:

   

  • Bacteriophage-loaded microneedle patches for food (Sci Adv)

  • Gene drive to suppress antibiotic resistance (npj antimicrob and resistance)

  • CRISPR gene drives (Syntego)

  • Bier laboratory

  Music used on TWiM is composed and performed by Ronald Jenkees and used with permission.

  Send your microbiology questions and comments to twim@microbe.tv

• 350: TWiM Goes to College

  Nancy and Maggie join TWiM to share how and why they created a freely available ebook of TWiM-based science literacy resources and classroom exercises that support teaching across key microbiology and molecular biology topics.
  
  

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  Links for this episode:
  
  

  • Podcast annotation and resources in microbiology (Iowa State U)

  • Curriculum guidelines for undergraduate microbiology (ASM)
    
    

  Music used on TWiM is composed and performed by Ronald Jenkees and used with permission.

  Send your microbiology questions and comments to twim@microbe.tv

• 349: Punctured to Death by Spikes

  TWiM explains how mechano-bactericidal surfaces made from diverse materials and patterned with spikes kill bacteria on contact, and virus-host evolution is reshaped by microgravity aboard the International Space Station.

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  Links for this episode:
  
  

  • Mechano-Bactericidal Surfaces (Adv Sci)

  • Piercing pathogens (ASM)

  • Natural bactericidal surfaces (Small)

  • Virus-host evolution in microgravity (PLoS Biol)
    
    

  Music used on TWiM is composed and performed by Ronald Jenkees and used with permission.

  Send your microbiology questions and comments to twim@microbe.tv

• 348: The Bark Side of the Microbiome

  TWiM explains the finding that owning a dog during adolescence alters the microbiota and improves mental health, and the molecular basis for multidrug efflux by an anaerobic-associated resistance-nodulation-cell division transporter.

  Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Michael Schmidt, Michele Swanson and Petra Levin.

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  Music used on TWiM is composed and performed by Ronald Jenkees and used with permission.

  Links for this episode

  • Dog ownership and the microbiome during adolescence (iScience)
  • Molecular basis for multidrug efflux (Nat Comm)
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  Send your microbiology questions and comments (email or recorded audio) to twim@microbe.tv

• 347: At Wound’s Edge

  TWiM explains how S. aureus pathogenicity is a dynamic, niche-specific choreography that constantly recalibrates in response to the host microenvironment, and short chain fatty acids produced by commensal microbiota reduces its competitive fitness.

   

  Hosts: Michael Schmidt, Michele Swanson and Petra Levin.

  
  Guest: Mark O. Martin

   

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  Links for this episode:
  
  

  • Niche-specific fitness of S. aureus at the wound edge (Nat Comm)

  • Commensal derived short chain fatty acids attenuate S. aureus (mBio)

  • Ditch the term pathogen (Nature)
    

   

  Music used on TWiM is composed and performed by Ronald Jenkees and used with permission.

  Send your microbiology questions and comments to twim@microbe.tv