Genomics Revolution

Miranda Mordue and Matthew Hecker are the final guest hosts from the 2020 Hiram College Genetics course. Their topic is the 2nd major coronavirus zoonotic disease that is still a problem in parts of the world - MERS.

Denise Hart and Madyson Morris take us back almost two decades to the first big coronavirus scare - SARS!

Keegan Rankin and Torey Coward keep their bug zappers ready to go as they discuss the mosquito-borne viral disease Zika.

Alexus Acton and Rachna Prasad dig through the history, biochemistry and genomics of one of humanity’s scariest disease - Ebola.

Alysa Giudici and Rachel Jerkins wear long sleeves and pants while they discuss the mosquito-transmitted zoonotic West Nile Fever which impacts birds, humans and horses.

Giselle Bahena and Diamond Johnson guest host an episode on one of humanity’s oldest zoonotic diseases - rabies.

Brad adds on to Emily & Tim’s excellent introduction to HIV and AIDS.

Brad sets the table for the last set of 2020 Hiram College Genetics course guest podcasts.

Emily Harris and Tim Murton guest host this episode focused on the viral pandemic that defined the late 20th century - HIV and AIDS.

Sheree Nobles and Josh Gregory from the 2020 Genetics course tie together genital warts, several types of human cancer, and a group of closely related viruses known to many as simply HPV.

Abbey Anderson and Sammie Mansfield from the 2020 Genetics course shine light on a virus and its disease that has long lurked in the shadows - Hepatitis C.

Brad jumps in with a trailer for 4 episodes dealing with viruses that are transmitted by sex and transfer of bodily fluids.

Ciara Love and Cara Katzendorn from the 2020 Hiram Genetics course illuminate a virus spread by blood and other bodily fluids and the disease that it causes - Hepatitis B.

Kiyana Caver and Brittany Weaver walk us through the devastating history of polio and a hopeful happy ending in the near future.

Mit Patel and Andrew Pemberton, from the 2020 Hiram College Genetics course, bring us an ancient human scourge that is here no more - the only pathogen wiped from the planet so far. Let us hope that smallpox stays a scourge of our past.

Brad jumps in with a short trailer introducing some viruses that we have conquered or nearly conquered.

Bri Bays and Melika King discuss the influenza virus group that never goes pandemic, but still wreaks havoc with human health every year - Influenza Type B.

Blake Erman and Ciza Sadoke discuss the strange workings of one of our annual scourges - influenza virus type A. Why do we get a new flu shot every year and how do pandemic flu strains make rare surprise appearances? Listen in to find out.

Two very funny people, Allison Slutz and Cole Filer, from the 2020 Hiram College Genetics course get serious about a childhood illness and its causal virus that should be a thing of the past, but it still raises it ugly head - measles

Alainna Conroy and Zach Walker talk about the virus and its genome that infects us once but hurts us twice - once in childhood (there is a vaccine now) and again as a senior (there is a different vaccine for that).

Brad introduces us to the first virus discovered - a pathogen of tobacco!

Brad introduces a new season of podcasts focused on viral genomes such as the one behind our current COVID-19 pandemic.

Curtis Swearingen from the 2019 Hiram College tells us about the genome of the most heavily studied eukaryote on Earth - the maker of bread and beer and wine, the unicellular yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Brad sets up the last two student-hosted episodes by bringing up a not so obvious point to us “macrobes” (organisms visible to the naked eye) - even most members of the domain Eukarya are microbial!

Hunter Jenkins steps in to tell us about a microbial titan of human dental plaque - Fusobacterium nucleatum. It truly helps nucleate, or organize, the multi-microbial plaque biofilm.

How about being extreme in how much of your genome you throw away? Obligate endosymbionts have done just that and in doing so have become trapped in their host organisms. Quite often the interdependence is mutual as the host has come to rely on the endosymbiont for critical functions as well. Hannah Mann guest hosts this episode on the first endosymbiont genome sequenced - that of Buchnera sp. APS.

Thermotoga maritima is an extremophilic member of the Bacteria on several fronts - not just in temperature preference but also in its massive accumulation of genes from the Archaea living around it. Tae’lor Jones introduces to this intriguing microbe.

Nicole Ryman from the 2019 Hiram College Genetics course introduces us to Deinococcus radiodurans, an extreme microbial athlete when it comes to genomic protection and repair when dealing with damage from radiation.

Look out your window at that beautiful tree or shrub nearby. Now imagine it living in a hot springs at over 50C doing photosynthesis without oxygen as a byproduct but rather by excreting elemental sulfur. Kerry Vickers from the 2019 Hiram College Genetics course tells us about a microbial anaerobic thermophilic phototroph, Chlorobium tepidum strain TLS, that does just that.

Brad jumps back in to comment on the extreme lifestyles seen in some microbes.

Brad puts the dreaded “P-word” (Prokaryote) to rest and introduces the Archaea, the 3rd domain of life only recognized as distinct in 1977.

Brad jumps in amongst the Survey of Genomes to speak to the question of “why do we need to sequence the genome of a pathogen we just want to kill?”

Time to talk about a good guy bacterium in the human gut! Stephanie Cipa from the 2019 Hiram College Genetics course tells the fascinating story of the bacterial genus Bifidobacterium that has evolved to live in the guts of humans and other mammals.

In this episode from the survey of genomes, Brett Bentkowski from the 2019 Hiram College Genetics course introduces us to the unicellular eukaryote Schizosaccharomyces pombe, also called a fission yeast. It is a model system for understanding the cell cycle.

A grape jelly smell and greenish blue pigments in an open wound are a sure sign of a serious infection that is hard to cure. Kiara Jeffrey from the 2019 Hiram College Genetics course introduces to the pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

Bacterial pathogens don’t just attack humans and other animals. There are many important bacterial pathogens of plants and Sam Hitchcock, working with just his “off hand” (his dominant hand was in a cast), tells us about a pathogen that can attack over 200 different kinds of plants - Ralstonia solanacearum.

Consumption, phthisis (pronounced ti-a-sis), lung fever, and the white plague are just some of the names used over the centuries for a disease that still infects upwards of 1/3 of all humans on Earth - tuberculosis. Most people don’t yet know that they are infected and may never show active symptoms. Anna Pallante from the 2019 Hiram College Genetics course tells us what we can learn from the genome of its causative agent - Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

Ka Shing Allan So from the 2019 Hiram College Genetics course introduces us to the largest bacterial cause of food-related gastrointestinal infections - Campylobacter jejuni.

In this episode from a survey of genomes, Danielle Vincent from the 2019 Hiram College Genetics course will introduce us to Vibrio cholerae El Tor N16961 and what its genome tells us about its ability to cause the dreaded disease cholera.

Tim Stucky takes us away from the human microbiome out into nature, specifically clean freshwater habitats with very few nutrients. He discusses the genome of Caulobacter crescentus, a stalked bacterium that can either swim or attached itself to a substrate.

In this episode from the survey of genomes, Taylor Yamamoto from the 2019 Hiram College Genetics course discusses the genome of E. coli O157:H7, not a microbe you want to meet in a dark alley or in an undercooked hamburger.

Being at the wrong place at the wrong time can sometimes mean trouble and that is exactly what happens when a particular soil bacterium gets into a wound. Ashley Redman from the 2019 Hiram College Genetics course spills the dirt on the leading cause of gas gangrene - Clostridium perfringens.

In this episode from a survey of genomes, Daijah Sek from the 2019 Hiram College Genetics course walks us through the genome of the syphilis pathogen Treponema pallidum.

In this episode from the survey of genomes, Kaitlyn Morse from the 2019 Hiram College Genetics course moves us into the world of eukaryotic genomes. Her focus is on the first model animal for genetic analysis - Drosophila melanogaster or as most people know it, the fruit fly.

In this episode from the survey of genomes, Alexis Polcawich from the 2019 Hiram College Genetics course talks about Yersinia pestis, the microbe behind one of the deadliest diseases in human history - the Black Plague.

Zoe Ceballos introduces us to a member of the Domain Archaea that lives in a very extreme habitat - salt at saturating concentration (> 5 molar). Halobacterium and its obligate halophile relatives have evolved a salt-dependent lifestyle, unlike virtually all other cellular lifeforms.

There are 3-5 major groups within the Domain Archaea. One of those is called the Crenarcheota and Brayla Stokes from the 2019 Hiram College Genetics course tells us about the first genome sequenced from the Crenarchaeota - Aeropyrum pernix strain K1.

What do lice, flying squirrels, and World War I have in common? That weird question is answered by Jake Lininger from the 2019 Hiram College Genetics course as he introduces us to the cause of epidemic typhus - the pathogenic bacterium Rickettsia prowazekii.

In this episode from the survey of genomes, Nikkia Schady from 2019 Hiram College Genetics course and the Women’s Volleyball team will introduce us to a member of the Archaea, the 3rd domain of life not recognized until 1977.

The first group of Archaea were methanogens - microbes that produce methane as a byproduct of their metabolism. The first ever Archaea genome sequenced was from the methanogen Methanococcus jannaschii. Kritika Bhau from the 2019 Hiram College Genetics course walks us through the implications of its genome.

Brad jumps in with 2 pathogens of insect larvae that do their dirty work in collaboration with tiny soil roundworms that carry the bacteria in their gut. Together, the roundworm and bacteria use insect larvae as food sources and can be used as biocontrol agents for certain plant-eating grubs.