#metagenomics

[carbon-cyanide]

☆ Grad school life ☆

This week has been an opportunity for me to catch up on some of my bioremediation research before diving back into the computational stuff next week.

I'm starting to see how each chapter of my dissertation is being formed by the various projects I'm engaged with and how each of those things connects to central ideas around water pollution and bioremediation.

For the first time this summer I feel like I've caught my breath and I'm excited to dive full force into lab work now that the wet lab is fully functional and cleared for experiments.

My advisor (an avid surfer) says I've got momentum & now I just gotta keep riding the wave...

[deepseacritter]

I just want everyone to see how pretty gel electrophoresis samples look under UV light (a high performance ultraviolet transilluminator, to be exact). It makes my heart happy. The colors anyway.

Believe me when I say this is the most successful PCR sample set I’ve gotten in 16 months. So much heartache and headaches. So many hours in the lab, and many late nights. Ah, to suffer in science.

[hamzambareche]

Proud to share a recent review on bionformatics tools for microbial ecology published on Life.

An Overview of Bioinformatics Tools for DNA Meta-Barcoding Analysis of Microbial Communities of Bioaerosols: Digest for Microbiologists - Pu

High-throughput DNA sequencing (HTS) has changed our understanding of the microbial composition present in a wide range of environments. App

[officialsydsquido]

This prof narrating his amino acid drawing with “there’s chemistry, it’s insane, I don’t even know what any of this means!” sure is a whole ass mood

[mindblowingscience]

‘Dark matter’ microbes add 20 new branches to the tree of life

Over 90 per cent of microorganisms are unknown to science, but DNA analysis has unmasked thousands of them and made life's story far more complex

They were right under our noses all along – thousands of novel microscopic life forms, now unmasked by genetic analysis. Many belong to entirely new groups, as different from other microbes as an insect is from a chimpanzee.

Earth’s microorganisms are split into groups called bacteria and archaea. Together, they make up the vast majority of species on the planet, but until recently we were only able to study a tiny fraction of them.

This is because less than 10 per cent can be isolated and grown in the lab. The rest can only survive in the conditions of their native environment – be it a hydrothermal vent or the guts of a cow. Researchers call them microbial dark matter.

However, a technique called metagenomics is bringing them to light. It involves taking an environmental sample, sequencing all the DNA in it – its metagenome – then piecing together the genomes of each of the microbes present. “It’s like getting a mix-up of lots of different jigsaw puzzles, and then trying to put together the pieces of each individual puzzle,” says Donovan Parks at the University of Queensland in Australia.

Continue Reading.

[elvisomar]

Jo Handelsman

(born 1959) Molecular biologist

Jo Handelsman was a professor of biology at Yale University when she was confirmed as Associate Director for Science at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. She next will serve as Director of the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery at UW-Madison, Wisconsin. Her research has focused primarily on metagenomics (a term she coined) and the study of antibiotic resistance.

Number 159 in an ongoing series celebrating remarkable women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

[forensicscientist18]

Metagenomic Profiling of Lung Microbes in Aquatic Forensics #worldresearchawards#researchawards

Metagenomic sequencing revealed that multi-kingdom lung microbes—particularly bacteria and eukaryotes—serve as reliable forensic markers in aquatic death investigations. Seventeen bacterial and nine eukaryotic species were identified as potential biomarkers for drowning diagnosis, with Aeromonas hydrophila showing strong diagnostic significance. Robust random forest models achieved high accuracy for drowning identification (89.29%), drowning site inference (100%), and postmortem submersion interval (PMSI) estimation (MAE 0.66 days). These findings enhance precision in forensic investigations of aquatic corpses.

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[forensicscientist18]

Forensic application of metagenomics: Methods and future directions #researchawards #forensicscience

The forensic application of metagenomics represents a groundbreaking advancement in forensic science, allowing the comprehensive analysis of microbial communities associated with crime scenes, human remains, and environmental samples. Through next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies and bioinformatics pipelines, metagenomics provides high-resolution insights into microbial DNA signatures that can help identify individuals, determine postmortem intervals (PMI), trace geographical origins, and link suspects or victims to specific environments. This approach surpasses traditional culture-dependent techniques by analyzing entire microbial genomes directly from samples, even those that are degraded or mixed. Future directions include the development of standardized metagenomic databases, AI-driven microbial profiling, integration with human and environmental DNA analysis, and the establishment of forensic metagenomics as a reliable tool in judicial contexts.

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