Podcasts about featured quotes

This week, I'm joined by the incredible Tori Hope Petersen. She is an author, speaker, Bible teacher and fierce advocate for foster care, adoption, and vulnerable children. Raised in and out of the foster care system herself, she has dedicated her life to sharing her testimony and offering hope to others. Tori is also a wife, mom, and lover of people, with a deep appreciation for cooking, family, community, and hospitality. Tori has so many incredible insights to share about healing from the past, breaking destructive patterns, and finding lasting hope. Plus, we talk about her upcoming book, Breaking the Patterns That Break You, which is set to release on February 4th, 2025.   I was so moved and inspired by this conversation and I'm so excited to share it with you!   5:36 – Tori 101   ·      Growing up in and out of the foster care system ·      Working in foster care advocacy ·      Releasing her first book, Fostered ·      Second book release in February     8:57 – Resilience and Hope   ·      The healing Tori experienced through her track career ·      The power of having supportive figures in your life ·      The lasting impact of words and emotional abuse     15:05 – Finding Lasting Healing   ·      Having deep self-compassion ·      Recognizing and addressing harmful patterns ·      Having trusting people around you to provide feedback     26:24 – Inviting Jesus Into The Healing Process   ·      The misconception that Jesus is a band-aid solution ·      Jesus is a true healer who repairs and rebuilds ·      Putting in the foundational work and continuing ongoing maintenance   40:39 – Encouragement For The Healers And Hurting   ·      Avoiding quick fixes ·      Being a good listener and question asker ·      Your life has purpose ·      Continuing to fight to find people who truly love you     FEATURED QUOTES   " That's healing- to accept sometimes the sad version of ourselves and not to try and change her.”   “We think that Jesus is coming in and just slapping a band aid on it, but really that that's sometimes what his people do. That's not who Jesus is…I think we just need to change our perspective and understand that like God is coming in and he wants to truly repair the home.”   “More than people need advice. People need someone to sit with them, walk with them. Listen to them.”   "Your life has purpose… There's a beautiful plan for your life. God loves you and for you to stay here very well may be the thing that someone else needs.”     Learn more about Tori:   https://www.torihopepetersen.com/   Pre-order your copy of Breaking The Patterns   https://www.amazon.com/Breaking-Patterns-That-Break-You/dp/1400250048     Get your copy of Tori's book, Fostered   https://www.amazon.com/Fostered-Womans-Powerful-Finding-through/dp/1087750970   I Love You Already Podcast   https://open.spotify.com/show/67tPTqQ6uMS1WRuy4tvQyP?si=1poWQ1nMS_KbP9-GqgwrjQ&nd=1&dlsi=72a9e71cf68b4ce7   Tori on Instagram   https://www.instagram.com/torihopepetersen/?hl=en   Tori on YouTube   https://www.youtube.com/@iloveyoualready   Connect with me:    http://www.stillbeingmolly.com http://instagram.com/stillbeingmolly http://instagram.com/canilaughpod http://twitter.com/stillbeingmolly http://facebook.com/stillbeingmolly http://facebook.com/canilaughpod http://tiktok.com/@stillbeingmolly     GET YOUR COPY of ‘IF I DON'T LAUGH, I'LL CRY” TODAY: Barnes & Noble: https://bit.ly/IIDLICbn Amazon: https://amzn.to/48VYFkG ChristianBook: https://bit.ly/IIDLICcb Target: https://bit.ly/3Shh3Q2 Walmart: https://bit.ly/3MmGVpJ Indie Bound: https://bit.ly/IIDLICib Audible: https://amzn.to/3ITcdm8 Kindle: https://amzn.to/3ITaSvv     About Can I Laugh On Your Shoulder?   Can I Laugh On Your Shoulder? Podcast is a weekly podcast where we have honest conversations about faith, business, life, and everything in between. Hosted by speaker and author, Molly Stillman, her mission is to make you laugh, cry, and laugh till you cry. She wants to create a community of people who are unafraid to be themselves and have honest conversations about the things that matter most. Her vision is to create a safe space for people to explore their faith and share their stories and gifts with the world.   

What is church? In this debut episode of LOAM, co-pastors Tonetta Landis-Aina and Anthony Parrott explore the essence, tensions, and beauty of Christian community. From underground churches in Yemen to food pantries in Iowa, they unpack personal experiences that have shaped their understanding of what makes church...church. Key Conversations - The "isness" of church: Beyond programs and buildings - Church as a fellowship of difference - The power of marginality in Christian community - Tension between institutional structures and authentic relationships - Multi-generational community as "burning bushes" Featured Quotes & References - Eugene Peterson on the "ontological church" - C.S. Lewis's Screwtape Letters on the visible vs. invisible church - Dr. Willie James Jennings's commentary on Acts - Jamar Tisby on the Civil Rights Movement as America's third Great Awakening - Dallas Willard: "Your system is perfectly tuned to get the results you're getting" Scripture Referenced: - Ephesians 2 (God's household) - Acts 1-2 (Birth of the church) Questions for Reflection: 1. What experiences have shaped your understanding of church? 2. How do you navigate the tension between church as institution and church as community? 3. Where do you see "burning bushes" in your faith community? Follow LOAM: Instagram loam.fm Got thoughts or questions about this episode? We'd love to hear from you: podcast@loam.fm

Saeed Khan, Ph.D., Head of the Department of Molecular Pathology at Dow diagnostic research and reference laboratory and President of the Pakistan Biological Safety Association discusses the importance and challenges of biosafety/biosecurity practices on both a local and global scale. He highlights key steps for biorisk assessment and management and stresses the importance of training, timing and technology. Ashley's Biggest Takeaways Adequate biosafety and biosecurity protocols depend on a thorough understanding of modern challenges, and scientists must be willing and able to respond to new technological threats appropriately. In the microbiology lab, the threat goes beyond the physical pathogen. Implications of genomics and cyber security must be built into biorisk management techniques, including data storage and waste management practices. Risk assessments involve evaluation of both inherent and residual risk. Inherent risk is linked to the pathogen. Residual risk varies according to the lab, equipment, employee, environment, etc. As a result, biosafety and biosecurity risks are constantly changing, and assessments must be repeated strategically and often. Khan recommended repeating a risk assessment whenever a key variable in the equation changes, i.e., new equipment, new employee, new pathogen. He also recommended (at minimum) conducting routine risk assessments every 6 months, or twice a year. Featured Quotes:  “We need to have basic biosafety and biosecurity to stay away from these bugs and the modern challenges, like cyber biosecurity and genomics. These are the new areas, which are potential threats for the future, and where we need to train our researchers and students.” “Starting from simple hand washing or hand hygiene, the basic things we use are gloves, goggles and PPE to protect the workers, the staff and the patient from getting infected from the environment, laboratory or hospitals. These are the basic things, and it's very crucial, because if one is not using gloves in the lab or not wearing the lab coat, he or she may get infected from the sample, and the patient can get infected from the physician and doctors or nurse if they are not following the basic biosafety rules. These [things] are routinely important. Every day we should practice this.” “But there are [also] new challenges. Particularly in the microbiology lab, we [used to] think that once we killed the bacteria, then it's fine. But nowadays, it's not the way we should think about it. Though you kill the bacteria practically, it still has a sequence, [which] we call the genome, and if you have that information with you, you theoretically have the potential to recreate that pathogen… that can be used or maybe misused as well.” “[Working with] scripts of pathogens, like smallpox or the polioviruses, we call this synthetic biology. Different scientists are doing it for the right purposes, like for production of vaccines, to find new therapeutics, to understand the pathology of the diseases. But on [the other hand]—we call it dual use research of concern (DURC)—the same can be misused as well. That's why it's very important to be aware of the bugs that we are working with, and the potential of that pathogen or microbe, to the extent that can be useful or otherwise.” “So, we should be aware of the new concern of the technology, synthetic biology and DURC. These are new concepts—cyber, biosecurity and information security [are all] very much important these days. You cannot be relaxed being in the microbiology lab. Once we have identified a pathogen, declared a result to the patient and the physician, and it's been treated, we [still] need to be worried about waste management—that we discard that waste properly and we have proper inventory control of our culture. It should be safe in the locker or on in the freezers and properly locked, so we should not be losing any single tube of the culture, otherwise it may be misused.” Risk Assessment “The best word that you have used is risk assessment. So, it should gage the severity of the issue. We should not over exaggerate the risk, and we should not undermine the risk. Once the risk assessment been made, we can proceed.” “Right from the beginning of touching a patient or a sample of the patient until the end of discarding the sample, that is called biorisk management. It's a complete science that we need to be aware of—not in bits and pieces. Rather a comprehensive approach should be adopted, and each and every person in the organization should be involved. Otherwise, we may think [we are] doing something good, but someone else may spoil the whole thing, and it will be counterproductive at the end.” “We should involve each and every person working with us and the lab, and we should empower them. They should feel ownership that they are working with us, and they are [as] responsible as we are. So, this the whole process needs to be properly engaged. People must be engaged, and they should be empowered, and they should be responsible.” “Each and every lab has different weaknesses and strengths of their own, which play an important role in the risk assessment.” “There is inherent risk, which is linked with the pathogen, and there is another thing we call residual risk. So, residual risk everywhere and varies. Though the inherent risk may be the same, the residual risk is based on the training of the person, the lab facility that is available, the resources that labs have and the potential threats from the environment.” “It's not usually possible that you do a risk assessment every day. So, when you have different factors involving a new pathogen in your lab, you have new equipment in your in your lab, or some new employee in your lab—[a new] variable factor that is involved—you should [perform] the risk assessment. Otherwise, [a routine risk assessment] should [be done] twice a year, after 6 months.” “Training is important, and response time is very much crucial. And different technology plays a vital role, but the lack of technology should not be an excuse for not responding. There is always an alternative on the ground that you may do the risk assessment. And within the given resources and facility, we should mimic the technology and respond to any outbreaks or disease within our given resources.” Links for the Episode ASM Guidelines for Biosafety in Teaching Laboratories Pakistan Biological Safety Association Training to be a Biosafety Professional (video) Take the MTM listener survey!

Send us a Text Message.In this inspiring episode, I dive into the powerful story of transforming an industry-leading bridal company into a thriving coaching business. Join me as I explore the journey of overcoming obstacles, embracing responsibility, and finding growth through faith and communication. Mindy and Jordan share their experiences and insights on stewardship, personal responsibility, and the power of small, consistent actions. Don't miss out on these life-changing lessons that can help you transform your mindset and achieve your goals.Key Takeaways:Effective communication and alignment in partnerships.The importance of taking personal responsibility for growth.How faith and trust guide personal and professional journeys.The impact of consistent, small actions in achieving big results.Featured Quotes:"Effective communication is the bedrock of any strong partnership.""Owning your decisions is essential for personal growth.""Our faith guides every step we take together.""Continuous growth is the goal, both personally and professionally."Tune in to the Patient Advocacy Voices Podcast todayJoin Sanofi's Eric Racine to meet the unsung heroes leading patient advocacy organizationsListen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify=========================== Subscribe and Listen to the Own It Show HERE: ➡︎ YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/@justinroethlingshoefer➡︎ Apple Podcasts:https://apple.co/3KCyN3j➡︎ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3F58Ez4lbIKQ6kMu2pfpIG =========================== Resources: ⚡️CHECK OUR PROGRAMS: https://ownitcoaching.com/programs/⚡️BOOK: https://thepowerofownershipbook.com/ =========================== Connect with Justin Roethlingshoefer on Social Media: ➡︎ linkedin.com/in/justin-roethlingshoefer➡︎https://www.instagram.com/justinroeth/?hl=en Own It Success is different so own your different!

In this episode of "Travel Not Escape," we meet Niqua, a seasoned traveler and content creator behind "Traveling with Niqua" and the author of the ebook "⁠Your Go-To Travel Guide With 100+ Practical Travel Tips, Hacks + Strategies E-Book⁠⁠." She shares her journey from her early travel experiences as a child in the Virgin Islands to her expansive adventures as an adult. Niqua discusses her transition to solo travel and how it has allowed her personal growth and a deeper connection with herself. She emphasizes the importance of integrating her finance background into her travel endeavors, providing practical tips for managing travel costs effectively. Throughout the episode, Niqua reflects on how travel has been a transformative experience, helping her explore beyond her geographic and cultural boundaries. She also touches on the significance of travel accessibility and offers insights into travel hacking, aiming to make travel more attainable for everyone. Featured Quotes from Niqua: “Travel is not just about seeing new places, but about experiencing them and connecting with others.” “Financial literacy is crucial in travel. It's about making informed choices that align with your personal and financial goals.” Connect with Niqua: Traveling with Niqua - Official Website Buy Niqua's Ebook: Your Go-To Travel Guide With 100+ Practical Travel Tips, Hacks + Strategies E-Book Instagram: @travelingwithNiqua YouTube: Traveling with Niqua Channel Facebook: Traveling with Niqua TikTok: @travelingwithNiqua About Travel Not to Escape: Travel Not to Escape is a podcast dedicated to inspiring and equipping you with resources to create a life that you don't need to travel to escape from. Use solo travel as a catalyst to redesign your life, connect meaningfully, and live playfully. Each week, we share stories of transformation, adventure, and the power of solo travel. Listen and Follow: https://www.travelnottoescape.com/podcast Instagram: @⁠travelnottoescape⁠ To learn more about how to make more meaningful connections anywhere in the world, join the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Passport to Connection Program.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Join the Travel Not to Escape Community on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/travelnottoescape/message

Welcome to another episode of "Wellness Beyond the Chart," where we delve into the complexities of women's health and wellness beyond the conventional medical approach. Today's episode explores the often turbulent journey through perimenopause and menopause, offering insights, advice, and encouragement to help women navigate this transition with knowledge and grace.## Key Topics Discussed- **Understanding Perimenopause and Menopause:** Definitions and distinctions between perimenopause and menopause, highlighting the hormonal changes that occur and their impact on women's health.- **The Physical and Emotional Impact:** An in-depth look at how perimenopause can affect everything from sleep to sex drive, mood, and overall quality of life.- **Personal Journey:** Dr. Yvonne shares her personal experiences with perimenopause, including the challenges of recognizing symptoms and the importance of seeking support.- **Nutrition and Lifestyle Changes:** Practical advice on how diet, physical activity, and rest can play a crucial role in managing symptoms and improving well-being during perimenopause.- **The Power of Community:** Encouragement to share experiences and seek support from other women, healthcare providers, and community resources.- **Spiritual and Emotional Well-being:** Discussion on the importance of spiritual health and finding strength and peace through faith and reflection during this transition.## Featured Quotes- "What you consume plays a key role during this time... What you feed your body, also feeds your soul."- "Embrace this transition with faith and optimism... Trust in God's plan for us, knowing that He is with us every step of the way."## Call to ActionListeners are encouraged to:1. Educate themselves about perimenopause and menopause to feel more prepared for the journey.2. Build a supportive community by connecting with others going through similar experiences.3. Embrace the changes and growth opportunities that come with this life phase.## ConclusionThis episode is a heartfelt reminder that while the journey through menopause can be challenging, it also presents an opportunity for personal growth, deeper self-care, and renewed faith. By arming ourselves with knowledge, seeking support, and approaching this transition with grace, we can navigate the menopause rollercoaster with strength and optimism.Stay tuned for more episodes that explore the depths of wellness beyond the conventional chart, providing insights, stories, and advice to empower your journey towards holistic health.Stay Connected with Wellness Beyond the Chart

In this week's eye-opening episode, Avetis sits down with the dynamic Adrian Koehler, a revered leadership coach known for his transformational work with founders and high-performance teams. Dive deep into the realms of leadership, personal engagement, and the intricacies of busting common myths that hold leaders back. Key Takeaways: The Essence of Leadership: Adrian sheds light on his approach to coaching and what true leadership means in the hustle of the entrepreneurial world. Busting the Bullsh!t: Uncover the common myths and misconceptions that inhibit founders and how to navigate past them. Stories from the Field: From working with Navy SEALs to brands like NIKE and Herschel Supply Co., Adrian shares invaluable insights and anecdotes. Performance-Driven Leadership: Dive into the core tenets that drive top-tier organizations and understand how to apply them in your own journey. The Path to Fulfillment: Discover the art and science behind personal engagement and how leaders can find genuine fulfillment in their roles. Featured Quotes: "Leadership isn't about titles; it's about engagement, connection, and the impact you make." "The most powerful leaders are those who dare to confront the internal narratives holding them back." Resources & Links: Learn more about Adrian's transformative approach to leadership: Adrian's Website - Take New Ground Connect with Adrian on LinkedIn. About the Guest: Adrian Koehler has cemented his reputation as a force in the leadership space, helping founders and teams dismantle barriers and craft new narratives. His work has spanned Fortune 500 giants, multinationals, startups, and educational institutions. With a passion for human performance, Adrian has partnered with organizations globally, including the likes of the Navy SEALs, Oprah Winfrey Network, and UCLA, to name a few. About the Host: Avetis Antaplyan brings deep insights from the tech industry, engaging in profound conversations with leaders, innovators, and changemakers. The Tech Leader's Playbook is your go-to podcast for invaluable tech and leadership insights. Don't Miss an Episode: Subscribe to The Tech Leader's Playbook for weekly doses of invaluable insights from the tech world. Unlock your leadership potential and chart a path to genuine fulfillment. Join Avetis and Adrian as they delve into what it truly means to lead in today's fast-paced world.

My guest this week is Selina Ho, founder & CEO of Recloseted, a company that is working to transform the harmful fashion industry. She learned she had to do her part after learning the devastating truths behind garments.   Selina gathered a team of all-stars — from sourcing experts to material scientists – and leveraged her own business experience working at startups and Fortune 500s to help amazing slow fashion clients.    When she's not working, Selina loves to hike and snowboard, meditate/do yoga, or cook a new recipe.   3:57 – Selina 101   Recloseted is the first one-stop consulting agency for sustainable fashion. The company helps launch and scale sustainable brands and make existing companies more sustainable. She wore a polyester shirt at work and broke out in a rash. That led her down a rabbit hole of what's in clothing.   7:39 – What she has learned   A lot of synthetic materials are made out of oil. Cotton uses so much water. Selina was shocked by the treatment of garment workers.   15:42 – How she helps companies   Recloseted works with companies to determine budget, resources and goals.  Many of the owners are creative, passionate people who need business knowledge.   21:07 – Bumps along the way   There are trials and tribulations and rough patches, but you need to keep going. You haven't failed until you stop.   25:13 – Leveling up   At every level of business, you become a better version of yourself. You keep leveling up. A big thing has been realizing and learning how to lose control. When it's your business, you really like to hold on tight. You need to trust other people to do good work, and you need to empower them.    30:43 – Future proofing your business   Sustainability is not a nice-to-have. It's a must-have.  Make sure your finance and business is sustainable and in order.   39:20 – Recloseted Radio   Selina talks more about this topic on her podcast, Recloseted Radio   41:24 – Get to know you   Favorite meal? Poke bowl Something we'd never guess about her? She's very outdoorsy     FEATURED QUOTES   For me, a big thing has been just realizing and learning how to lose control. When it's your business, you really like to hold on tight.   You need to trust other people to do good work, and you need to empower them.    At some point, you need to not be the smartest person in the room.    https://www.recloseted.com/   Thank you to our partners of the show! Are you looking to clean up your household cleaning products this year? MamaSuds would like to help! The best way is to simply start with one product. Every time you run out of a specific cleaning product, replace it with a non-toxic one. Another tip, purchase a product that has multiple uses. The MamaSuds Collection has many multiple use products (castile soap or the toilet bombs are just a few!). Their blog has lots of great tips and a castile soap recipe that you can print and make a lot of your own effective cleaners! Give them a try at www.mamasuds.com and don't forget to use the coupon code MOLLY for 15% off your order! I'd like to thank our other partner of the show and that's Tradlands. Tradlands is an INCREDIBLE sustainable fashion brand that believes in clothing that you can live in NOW and love forever. Clothing that not only makes you feel like your best self, but also fits in a way that flatters. Their gorgeous dresses, pants, tops, and more are designed to move with you throughout your busy days. Their Nico dress is my dress in a love language —not only does it have sleeves, but also POCKETS and you know how I feel about dresses with pockets. I love how comfortable and stylish each piece - and they come in colors like classic neutrals or vibrant hues. One of the things I love most about Tradlands is their focus on sustainability and creating small batch clothing that lasts… they never over produce what they make and focus on only the highest quality materials. And you know how much I love supporting small businesses, too. Check them out at https://tradlands.com/businesswithpurpose and use the code MOLLY20 for 20% off!

The Wallet Watch hosts are very excited for a special holiday episode featuring an interview with Matt Johnson, president at On Target Living. Matt and the hosts explore ways to maintain overall health and wellbeing, especially through the holiday season into the New Year. To learn more about On Target Living and their resources, visit ontargetliving.com.Featured Quotes:    - “If we've ever gone for an exercise where our mind wasn't quite right, we always leave feeling better, and I think we have to again, [go] back to the simple things. It's very simple to move our bodies, not always easy.” – Matt Johnson    - “I believe energy, or your energy is your most precious commodity. What do I mean by that? I think we think time is, but I truly think it's energy, but there's no way to measure it. So you really have to be in tune with the body, you have to be mindful about the body… We got to kind of slow down and if we are always in a hurry and we're trying to cover up symptoms... because we just don't take the time to kind of backup.” –Matt Johnson     - “Everyone listening, everyone we guide around the holidays, stick to some of the good habits you have. Don't eliminate all of them and say well, I'm going to have that pie so I might as well do everything off the rails. Stick to some of those things so you can have a little bit of liberty, and we teach this thing called 80/20 rule so maybe around the holidays it's like the 60/40. That means 60% of the time you are taking care of yourself but you can have some fun for the next couple of months.” – Matt Johnson

One of my favorite verses of scripture is 1 Peter 4:10, which says: "Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God's grace in its various forms."   I really believe that we were all given a gift to use to help, serve and bless others. I think serving, teaching and nurturing children is one of the best gifts. It takes a special person to be able to work in the life of a child, especially with children who are neurodivergent or neurodiverse.    My guest today is Brittni Winslow, a dear friend of mine who lives in Durham, N.C. She is an occupational therapist and executive director of Emerge Pediatric Therapy in North Carolina. She helps create confident kids through customized therapy.     6:46 – Brittni 101   Brittni is married and has three daughters. She is an occupational therapist and always wanted to open her own business.    8:17 – How is occupational therapy different from physical therapy?   Brittni works on functional skills for kids, such as play, caring for themselves, sitting at the dinner table, etc. Physical therapy is working on strengthening or rehabilitating.    9:17 – What makes Emerge so different?   Brittni wants Emerge to be different from other occupational therapy providers. A big part of that is working with the kids and educating the parents, teachers and community partners. “We want to make sure everyone is on the same page and everyone is educated on how to best work with this child,” said Brittni. “I truly believe that no kid is intentionally trying to be bad. There are some ways that their system might be wired that makes it really hard for them,” said Brittni.   14:07 – Generational changes in helping children   Brittni says she’ll often hear parents say, “I dealt with this [issue] as a kid.”  Kids are sometimes misjudged as being lazy, disinterested or having behavioral problems. But really, there are some underlying issues that could easily be addressed.    16:48 – Removing the stigma   "It’s not that how these kids are wired is wrong. It’s just a different wiring,” said Brittni. You need to uncover what will work best for kids.   20:51 – Has Brittni’s job affected how she parents her own kids?   She’s always taking one hat off and putting another hat on. She tries to use her tools to help her own children.  Even though Brittni has helped hundreds of kids, it can be hard to help her own children. But, having kids has helped her be a better OT and help other parents.   26:35 – How Covid has impacted her business   Brittni has worked on compassion fatigue with her therapists to make sure they are OK.   31:10 – Sensory night at the Durham Bulls   They partnered with the Durham Bulls baseball team and did a sensory night for kids. Some parents said it was the first baseball game they ever took their child to.    36:20 – Get to know you   Song she has to sing? Any song from the Trolls soundtrack Who has influenced her the most? Her grandfather Favorite meal? Angus Barn steak and salad     FEATURED QUOTES   “We want to make sure everyone is on the same page and everyone is educated on how to best work with this child.” – Brittni   “I truly believe that no kid is intentionally trying to be bad. There are some ways that their system might be wired that makes it really hard for them.” – Brittni   "It’s not that how these kids are wired is wrong. It’s just a different wiring.” – Brittni https://www.emergepediatrictherapy.com/

Show Notes:President Scott L Wyatt and Steve Meredith sit down with Rita Osborn, executive director of the Center for Rural Health to discuss Southern Utah University’s Rural Health Scholars Program. The program prepares students for graduate-level healthcare programs through academic and non-academic experiences.Featured Quotes: . . . the interesting message is you can have any major you want. You could be a music major and get to medical school. Many healthcare graduate programs appreciate that you diversified a lot of your undergrad experience exploring something that you’re passionate about. We have Spanish majors, psychology majors, nutrition majors, the whole gamut…business majors. So, as long as they're doing well in their sciences and achieve their science pre-reqs, then they’re fine.Rita Osborn, Executive Director of the Center for Rural HealthMany of our students just don’t know that they’ve got what it takes to do this, and so we come from this with an asset-based approach. 'These are the things that you bring to the table, and if you truly have the passion to do this, you can.'Rita Osborn, Executive Director of the Center for Rural HealthLinks Associated with this Episode:TranscriptFollow Us:Solutions for Higher Education PodcastSUU BlogSUU Facebook

Show Notes:President Scott L Wyatt and Steve Meredith sit down with SUU’s Dr. Eric Kirby, assistant vice president for student affairs and Ryan Bailey, coordinator of completion and student success. They discuss SUU’s main retention strategy, the Assistant Coaches for Excellence and Success (ACES), a peer mentoring program for first year students. Featured Quotes:. . . the ACES are basically the "one stop shop" for all incoming students, no ifs, ands, or buts about it. The ACE contacts their incoming student within 24 hours of that student 'depositing' at SUU and basically says that much. "I am your one stop shop; I am your end all and be all of anything you need. I may not know the answers, but I'm going to get you where you need to go."Eric Kirby, SUU Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs. . . there's always been staff members, there's always been academic advisors, financial aid counselors, but this way, every student has another student where maybe they can ask the nitty-gritty questions, or, "You just did this last year, how did you combat tough roommates? Or asking somebody on a date? Or homesickness?" And they're getting feedback from someone who is in their own shoes which I think has been really successful.Ryan Bailey, SUU Coordinator of Completion and Student SuccessLinks Associated with this Episode:TranscriptFollow Us:Solutions for Higher Education PodcastSUU BlogSUU Facebook

Show Notes:President Scott Wyatt and Steve Meredith sit down with SUU’s Provost Jon Anderson to discuss SUU’s newest innovation: a $10,000 bachelor of general studies degree program. They discuss the promise of online student growth and how this new program offers yet another path for SUU students to succeed.Featured Quotes: . . . as we did our financial modeling, we settled on a price point of about $79 a credit, which would allow someone to enter SUU Speedway Campus and finish a full bachelor’s degree for under $10,000. I believe we’re the first institution in the intermountain west to offer a full bachelor’s degree for under $10,000. The Speedway Campus only offers one degree program and that is a Bachelor of General Studies, either a Bachelor of Science or a Bachelor of Arts in General Studies. It’s a list of about 40 courses the student can complete to get to 120 credits and they can do that entering in seven week sessions.Dr. Jon Anderson, SUU ProvostI really, fundamentally believe that the broader the brand is, the more recognized the brand is, the more success that every modality will have. So, as people hear about SUU being successful in any one area, that begins to bleed over to lots of other areas and the whole institution begins to elevate. It’s true that the rising tide lifts all boats, and the same thing happens with the brand of an institution.Dr. Jon Anderson, SUU ProvostLinks Associated with this Episode:TranscriptFollow Us:Solutions for Higher Education PodcastSUU BlogSUU Facebook

Show Notes:President Scott L Wyatt and Steve Meredith sit down with Tawny Hammond, National Director of Learning Advancement for Best Friends Animal Society and SUU's Melynda Thorpe, Executive Director of Community and Professional Development. They discuss the SUU & Best Friends Executive Leadership Certification, the nation’s first university-endorsed animal services leadership program for working professionals as well as the importance of obtaining higher education in animal welfare.Featured Quotes:. . . it really goes back to an alumni banquet that we had here on campus and SUU was recognizing Julie Castle, CEO of Best Friends who is an alumna. I happened to be there in the audience…I was at a table at the back of the room. I remember where I was sitting, I remember Julie standing up there and her saying the words articulating the goal of ending the killing of animals in shelters by the year 2025. And when you hear Julie speak, she's such a captivating speaker and person altogether, but that really resonated with me and I turned to the person next to me and said, 'I think we can help with that.'Melynda Thorpe, Executive Director, SUU Community and Professional DevelopmentI think that our work with SUU has . . . made us better as an organization in that we're able to fulfill that goal of being a learning and leading organization in ending the killing of pets in our nation. It's given us a prestigious partner, an academic partner, a very logical partner when you look at geography.Tawny Hammond, National Director of Learning Advancement, Best Friends Animal SocietyLinks Associated with this Episode:TranscriptFollow Us:Solutions for Higher Education PodcastSUU BlogSUU Facebook

Show Notes:As part of the podcast series Solutions for Higher Education, SUU President Scott L Wyatt will lead a “Summer Reading Club” focusing on a new book each month. Readers who join the podcast will be given an introduction to the book by Scott Wyatt and podcast host Steve Meredith, who will be joined by an expert guest to give additional insight and context to the completed reading.Featured Quotes:. . . We've put together an interesting collection of books that we hope are all relevant to the time that we're in. And some of the books are new, some are old, some are really deeply thoughtful and some are just fun. But we think that it’s going to be a good group of books. And they’re all from kind of a different genre.Scott L Wyatt, SUU PresidentWell, and it’s a good time to be reading books. So, people are always asking us, "What are we doing with our time?" And the answer is usually, "We’re actually working harder than we were last summer."Scott L Wyatt, SUU PresidentLinks Associated with this Episode:TranscriptFollow Us:Solutions for Higher Education PodcastSUU BlogSUU Facebook

Show Notes:Sophia Laderman from the State Higher Education Executive Offices Association joins the podcast this week to discuss the funding of higher education and how it has impacted tuition over the years. Featured Quotes:. . . if we go all the way back to 1980, funding was a lot higher, several thousand dollars per student higher. So, that means your average student at a public institution was getting a lot more state money for their education. And so, as state funding has gone down, tuition revenue has gone up and I think that’s what ends up in the news most often is increases in tuition rates that affect students . . .Sophia Laderman, SHEEO. . . there’s all this talk of a recession coming up, so with the next recession, it looks like funding will probably decline even further and that’s definitely concerning because . . . we might be at the point where we can’t really raise tuition anymore without pricing students out of the market and so it seems like there’s a big crunch coming up for the financing of higher education.Sophia Laderman, SHEEOLinks Associated with this Episode:TranscriptFollow Us:Solutions for Higher Education PodcastSUU BlogSUU Facebook

Show Notes:President Scott L Wyatt and Steve Meredith sit down with Rachel Fishman, Deputy Director for Research at the Higher Education Initiative with New America, to discuss the perceptions of higher education, including affordability, quality, and return on investment.Featured Quotes:. . . overwhelmingly people think [higher education is] not fine the way it is. We do ask a follow-up question to this that’s open ended that’s like, “Well, why do you feel that way?” And the overwhelming response is cost and affordability, which I think makes a lot of sense, especially given everything that we’ve basically seen in the news for the past four or five years where there’s a constant talk about student loan debt, how it’s 1.5-1.6 trillion dollars, what that means for a generation of students who now have debt and what that means for millennials and Generation Z mobility.Rachel Fishman, Higher Education Initiative with New America. . . never before have students been this invested in their education by having to borrow loans or having to front their own earnings or their parents’ earnings to help pay for it. And so, more people are in higher education than ever before and more are looking to see a serious return on investment because they’re making a serious investment of their own money.Rachel Fishman, Higher Education Initiative with New AmericaLinks Associated with this Episode:TranscriptFollow Us:Solutions for Higher Education PodcastSUU BlogSUU Facebook

Show Notes:We've invited Barbara Brittingham, the President of the New England Commission on Higher Education, to discuss what the downturn in higher ed enrollment is doing from an accreditation standpoint.Featured Quotes:. . . one of the things that the commission has seen (and Vermont is an excellent example of this unfortunately), is that when a small college closes, it is obviously very hard on the students and the faculty and the staff who work there, it's difficult for the alums, but it’s also very difficult for the local community because they have their campus that was a major employer in town, often it was a cultural center and has athletic facilities available to the community often and provided a lot of activity for the small businesses in town and the practitioners in town.Barbara Brittingham, New England Commission on Higher EducationMy predecessor used to say that ‘most [governing] boards want good news and a good meal.’ And I think a good meal is still possible, but I don’t know if the news is going to be good.Barbara Brittingham, New England Commission on Higher EducationLinks Associated with this Episode:TranscriptFollow Us:Solutions for Higher Education PodcastSUU BlogSUU Facebook

Show Notes:President Scott L Wyatt and Steve Meredith sit down with Jon Boeckenstedt, vice provost for enrollment management at Oregon State University. They discuss the adjustments colleges need to make to stay alive over the next decade, including more transparency in pricing and reducing barriers to admission.Featured Quotes: . . . there was a Gallup Poll just a few weeks ago that talked about the American public’s confidence in higher education and how important it was or is or isn’t and the number who said it was very important has fallen from 70% to 50% in just three or four years. So, I think people are becoming less willing to put forth and put out that much effort and that many resources for the education that they believe, I think, is largely a commodity anymore . . .John Boeckenstedt, Oregon State University. . . we can kind of get by from year to year if everything external stays the same, but when those big things happen outside the university in society, or politics, or government, or economics, or just public perception, we’re not always well equipped to handle that dramatic, punctuated equilibrium.John Boeckenstedt, Oregon State UniversityLinks Associated with this Episode:TranscriptFollow Us:Solutions for Higher Education PodcastSUU BlogSUU Facebook

Show Notes:President Scott L Wyatt and Steve Meredith are joined by Dustin Hansen, Sr. Creative Director at Electronic Arts, to discuss game design and game theory and how video games relate to learning opportunities and educational growth.Featured Quotes:. . . if I’m being really honest, my approach to education kind of follows my approach to game theory which is you have to let people experiment. You have to let somebody fail, and I was in a teaching, an art teaching position, one of the hardest things for any artist and I’m sure Steve will fit with this too because it crosses over to music very well, is artists are told to find their voice. What’s the unique thing that you can do to find your voice? And it just absolutely stifles people. It stops them in their tracks. So, my theory to that is the only way to find your voice is to fail at trying to be somebody else.Dustin Hansen, Electronic ArtsSo, when we’re asking people to really pause and understand language and we can’t truly speak their language—and I’m speaking as a game designer, not as an educator but I think there are some similarities there—when we’re asking them to speak in a language that we have defined, as a game designer, there’s a high, high correlation with failure there. But when you allow them to speak in their own experiences, that failure and that learning goes up dramatically.Dustin Hansen, Electronic ArtsLinks Associated with this Episode:TranscriptFollow Us:Solutions for Higher Education PodcastSUU BlogSUU Facebook

Show Notes:We're talking with Phyllis Hauptfeld with Academic Partnerships about SUU's plans to grow online degree offerings.Featured Quotes:. . . there’s no doubt that online is providing the kind of accessibility to students who are location-bound. I mean, the marketplace for your traditional students is about 3.5 million a year graduates. The adult learner, the online student, is 20-25 times that size.Phyllis HauptfeldI think most people that work at universities would be surprised how many consultants help with different kinds of things . . . . the world has become so sophisticated and I can think of a whole list of consultants that we work with regularly.Scott L WyattLinks Associated with this Episode:TranscriptFollow Us:Solutions for Higher Education PodcastSUU BlogSUU Facebook

Featured Quotes: "Rather than being reactive and, as you described earlier, and wait in our offices for students to come to us with questions, instead, we are encouraging our advisors to be very proactive to identify those students who may be at risk for not persisting on campus or may have life struggles and going to them to see what they can do to help that student be successful. Very different model. To get to that point, we’ve had to arm our advisors to with a tremendous amount of data on each of our students, we’ve had to give them permission to do things differently . . . " ~ Jared Tippets ". . . we have a mantra by which we live and operate, and that is that we will make decisions about how we spend our time and our money and the way we approach our jobs based on 1) “What’s best for students,” 2) “What’s best for the university,” 3) “What’s best for the department or the unit or my office,” and 4) “What’s best for me”. What we see across higher education is that oftentimes, people are making decisions in the reverse order, based on 1) “What’s best for me and my career?”" ~ Jared Tippets Full Transcript

How can the humble zebrafish teach us about the human microbiome? John Rawls discusses the benefits of using animal models Take the MTM Listener Survey  Julie’s Biggest Takeaways:   Zebrafish and other model animals provide opportunities to understand host-microbe interactions. Zebrafish are particularly useful for imaging studies, due to their translucent skin and the ease of in vivo microscopy. This allows zebrafish to be used to in studies of spatial architecture or longitudinal studies (imaging the same fish specimen over time) in ways that other model organisms can’t be.   Zebrafish get their first microbes from their mother, just like mammals! The chorion, a protective coating that surrounds the zebrafish embryo, is seeded with microbes from passing through the cloaca of the female zebrafish. Surface-sterilizing this chorion allows researchers to generate germ-free animals that are very useful for microbiome studies.   A gut epithelial transcription factor is regulated by a signal from the gut microbiota, and this signaling interaction is conserved among all vertebrates. The transcription factor itself, HNF4, is found in both complex and simple animals, like the sea sponge, and may serve a long-conserved function in regulating interactions between animals and their microbiota.   Enteroendocrine cells release hormones based on specific chemical cues, but they can also interact with the nervous system. This makes them an important part of the gut-brain system, and the power of in vivo imaging has made zebrafish a great model for better understanding their function. Specific members of the microbiome specifically stimulate these EECs, sending signals up the vagus nerve to the brain.   Featured Quotes:   “We know that the zebrafish functionality of its intestine is very similar to what one encounters in the mouse or human intestine and we and others have been able to translate our findings from zebrafish studies into human biology.”   On genomic studies that have found similar transcription profiles in zebrafish, stickleback fish, mice, and humans: “This suggested that there is a core transcriptome that gut epithelial cell use in different vertebrate species that haven’t shared an ancestor in 420 million years!”   Comparing fish and mouse: “Genes regulated by microbiota in these respective hosts display a lot of overlap. Many of the same signaling pathways and metabolic processes are affected by microbiotas in different hosts in similar ways.”   “There’s been a lot of interesting research documenting the role of the intestinal microbiome in promoting harvest of dietary nutrients we consume. Much of that literature has been focused on the events that occur in the distal intestine, in the colon, where recalcitrant carbohydrates and proteins that make it that far, many of which we are unable to digest, are made available to the colonic microbiome, members of which are able to digest and degrade them to things such as short chain fatty acids, which we can consume.”   “Eventually, we’ll have some strong candidates in terms of specific bacterial strains or communities or factors or pharmacologic agents that could be used to affect dietary fat absorption or metabolism. We’re still a long ways away from that.”   “One of the fascinating things about developmental biology is that the only way you get a viable animal is if the different tissues and the different cells within the body are coordinating amongst themselves for energy, for nutrients, for oxygen, et cetera. As you’re building an animal and as you’re sustaining an animal, the different tissues have to cooperate. When that doesn’t happen, when tissues or cells become selfish or don’t play by the rules, you get things like cancer and other diseases as well...when I began learning about the field of microbiome science and some of the work that was coming out from that field, it sounded to me like the microbiome was going to be a really important part of that. Not only can we think of the microbiome as a ‘microbial organ,’ as it is sometimes called, and therefore worthy of consideration within the context of developmental biology, but also the influence of the microbiome on any one tissue is going to modify its need and its ability to cooperate within the integrated system.”   Links for this Episode:   John Rawls’ lab website More amazing zebrafish images from the Rawls lab Duke University Microbiome Center Genome Research article on HNF4 regulation Cell Host and Microbe article on microbial influence on fatty acid absorption  

See the full shownotes at: asm.org/mtm Julie Pfeiffer tells the story of how she serendipitously found a role for the gut microbiota during polio virus infection, and how she and her lab discovered an important role for bacterial glycans in viral biology. She also talks about viral fitness strategies, and how RNA viruses and DNA viruses benefit from making different amounts of errors when copying their genomes. Julie's biggest takeaways: Determining the exact nature of the glycans that play these roles has been difficult because they are very complex. Aspects of lipopolysaccharide, chitin, and peptidoglycan are all sufficient to bind the viral capsid, but because of their structural complexity, it’s difficult to pinpoint the exact molecular interaction. Bacterial glycan interactions with viruses benefit the virus in two ways: the virus can be delivered to a host cell it will infect, and the viral capsid is stabilized. Whether there is a benefit to the bacterium during these interactions is unknown, but is an active area of research in Julie’s lab. Many viruses can be inactivated at body temperature or even room temperature if they prematurely release their genetic material. Polio viruses are simply a protein shell surrounding an RNA genome, and the capsid can ‘breathe,’ slightly changing its conformation. Sometimes, the genome is accidentally released, resulting in a viral dead end. Julie showed that bacterial glycans will lock the capsids into a conformation and prevent genome release from happening until the virus encounters a host cell. Julie is a proponent of clear communication, including with those working in similar fields, which she learned from her experience as a postdoctoral fellow. She and a postdoc in a different institution, Marco Vignuzzi, independently isolated a polio virus mutant that made fewer in genome replication. Both showed that the virus had a defect during mouse infection, indicating that the ability to introduce errors during genome replication is beneficial to viral fitness. Julie and Marco finally met at a viral evolution conference, after which they became close friends. Featured Quotes (in order of appearance): “I get more excited about a surprising result because it probably means there’s some interesting underlying biology that couldn’t be anticipated!” “We’ve done many gross experiments, so buyer beware; you’ve got to know what you’re getting into [with a fecal-oral pathogen].” “The infectious unit may be more complicated than we think!” “Communicating with people you know working on similar things can be mutually beneficial for everyone: you both get credit; nobody gets scooped. It’s win-win for sure.” “The truth is most enteric viral infections are self limiting in most healthy individuals so you’re much better off trudging through a day or two of gastrointestinal illness than blowing up your microbiota.” Links for this episode Julie Pfeiffer website at UT Southwestern Medical Center Back-to-back Science publications from Golovkina and Pfeiffer PLOS Pathogens: The importance of model systems: Why we study a virus on the brink of global eradication Viruses and Cells Gordon conference (donate here) HOM Tidbit: Michael Underwood’s A Treatise on the Diseases of Children

Pete Greenberg tells how bacteria can communicate based on cell density, a phenomenon he helped name quorum sensing. He talks about therapeutics based on quorum-sensing discoveries, and how studying bacterial interactions can be used to test ecological principles like cooperation and social cheating. Julie's biggest takeaways: Quorum sensing can be likened to an old-fashioned smoking room, where a few cigar smokers don’t affect the air quality, but as more smokers enter the room, it becomes beneficial to the group to open the window: a changed behavior that benefits the group environment. Differentiating waste molecules from signaling molecules is important to define specific quorum sensing. The experimental evidence that shows that molecules serve as quorum sensing signals that allow bacteria to respond at high density comes from social engineering experiments to identify ‘cheaters.’ Quorum sensing results in changes in gene expression that benefit the community but not necessarily individual cells. An example is antibiotics, which when made by a single cell aren’t at a high enough concentration to kill competitor microbes. As a group, all cells working together can produce a cloud of antibiotic that may be able to protect from competitors. The ability of microbes to receive or ‘eavesdrop’ on the signals produced may be cooperative, but is more likely competitive, giving the eavesdropper a competitive advantage by informing them about another species’ presence. If you knock out quorum sensing, you get abnormal biofilms, but it doesn’t ablate biofilms completely. Although a self-described disinterested high-school student, Greenberg signed up for a weekend field trip to get out of a test on a Friday. It was looking at animals in the intertidal bay of the Pacific Northwest that inspired him to be a biologist! Greenberg also credits his broad biology undergraduate training for preparing him to apply socioecology concepts to bacteria. Quorum sensing was originally called ‘auto induction.’ In the early 1990s, Greenberg was writing a minireview for the Journal of Bacteriology and wanted to think of a catchy title. As Greenberg remembers, coauthor Steve Winans explained the concept to his family, and his brother-in-law said “it’s like the bacteria need a quorum” - the birth of the term ‘quorum sensing.’ Featured Quotes (in order of appearance): “So-called ‘cheaters’ don’t respond to the signal, they’ve lost the ability to respond to the signal. The product that’s useful for the common good any more. They don’t pay the cost of cooperation but they can benefit by the cooperative activity of everyone else in the community...there’s a fitness advantage for cheaters in this environment.” “It’s a real case of convergent evolution. It’s important that the bacteria can do this, and these two really distinct types of [gram-positive and gram-negative] bacteria have evolved completely different mechanisms to perform quorum sensing.” “I think of bacteria as a way to study what is called ‘Darwin’s dilemma.’ If a cheater emerges among a population, it will have a fitness advantage over the population of cooperators. It should take over the population and ultimately cause the tragedy of the commons, where there are too many cheaters and not enough cooperators and the whole system collapses. Darwin’s dilemma is: how is cooperation stabilized? We know it exists and it seems like it shouldn’t - we can use bacteria to get at the rules.” “I got interested in [quorum sensing] because it was so cool!” “I had this idea, as we began to unravel quorum sensing in these marine luminescent bacteria, that any idea in biology that’s a good idea will occur more than once - but I didn’t have any evidence of that. For 15 years, my lab and essentially one other lab, Mike Silverman’s lab, were the only labs working on this. It was really the early 90s when our group and other groups started to realie that lots of bacteria do this. It’s one of those fantastic oddesies. It’s luck - luck and hard work, I guess. Hard work by the people in my lab as I sit around as watch!” “It’s funny how a term can catch on and sort of crystallize a field! But somehow, it seemed to do that. I’ve gotten really into trying to think of catchy terms since then, and the latest one is ‘sociomicrobiology,’ which I introduced with Matt Parsek about 12 years ago and there’s a burgeoning field called sociomicrobiology. I’m trying to think of another term now, before I retire!” Links for this episode   Pete Greenberg lab at the University of Washington Pete Greenberg 2004 PNAS bio Journal of Bacteriology minireview: Quorum Sensing in Bacteria HOM: Woody Hastings memoriam ASM Podcasts     Send your stories about our guests and/or your comments to jwolf@asmusa.org.

How are new diseases detected in a clinical microbiology lab? Melissa Miller talks about the time it takes to develop a test for a new disease (hint: it’s getting shorter). She also shares her definition of ‘point-of-care’ diagnostics and explains the major trends for clinical microbiology labs. Host: Julie Wolf  Subscribe (free) on iPhone, Android, RSS, or by email. You can also listen on your mobile device with the ASM Podcast app. Julie's biggest takeaways: Antibiograms are vital to understand the resistance characteristics of locally circulating disease strains. These help make empirical decisions for antibiotic therapy regimens before the susceptibility test results are available. New diseases require new diagnostic tests. How to determine how well new tests work once they’re developed? Clinical microbiologists look to the sensitivity (how well does a test detect if a patient has a disease) and specificity (how often is the test negative if the patients doesn’t have it) of the test. Having access to positive controls (that is, samples from a patient known to have the disease) can prove difficult in some settings, such as in North Carolina, where no Zika patients were admitted while the Zika virus test was being developed. When the HIV epidemic was beginning, it took several years after the HIV virus was identified to sequence its genome and use this for molecular testing. In 2002-2003, it took just over a month to get the SARS genome sequence for use in developing assays. It’s even quicker today; within a week, we can have sequences from viruses around the world. Defining ‘point-of-care’ testing took an entire hour at a recent American Academy of Microbiology colloquium! Melissa’s take: It’s a test that can be done at or near to where the patient is. Point-of-care tests are exciting but can also pose challenges. A recent example is false-positive pertussis tests that were shown to be due to pertussis vaccine being administered nearby. Ensuring the tests are used safely and accurately will best serve healthcare workers and patients alike. Molecular diagnostics have two trends: one trend simplifies existing technologies into point-of-care tests. The other trend adds complexity, by applying next-generation sequencing techniques in a reproducible manner. Featured Quotes (in order of appearance): “Laboratorians are often in the basement or in a setting where they aren’t visible to the healthcare team, but they’re very vital to taking care of the patient.”   “When you’re using laboratory-developed tests, the way it works in one laboratory may be very different from how it works in another laboratory.”   “The ultimate goal [of point-of-care testing] is to get a result that’s actionable. We don’t need to do tests that aren’t going to result in a clinically actionable decision.”   “In many ways, the technology is ahead of where our quality assurance protocols are.”   “I think it’s going to be very important in going ahead that we continue to have laboratorians involved in developing these point-of-care programs and consulting to these sites, helping to make sure that there are policies and procedures that ensure quality results for their patients.”   “It’s one thing to do it in a research setting; we’ve collaborated with a number of folks using next generation sequencing. But to then move it to the clinical lab and have it be reproducible and have the quality at the level you need for a clinical lab is a completely different challenge.” Links for this episode Melissa Miller University of North Carolina Website Division of Clinical Laboratory Science at University of North Carolina Searchable List of Clinical Laboratory Science Programs AAM Colloquium Report on Point-of-Care Testing CPEP Program Career Blog: Tips on becoming a clinical microbiology laboratory director HOM Tidbid: Papagrigorakis 2006 International Journal of Infectious Diseases report HOM Tidbit: Shapiro reply to Papagrigorakis report Send your stories about our guests and/or your comments to jwolf@asmusa.org.  

Dave Rasko uses comparative bacterial genomics to find DNA sequences that influence virulence or antibiotic resistance. Dave talks about his studies of E. coli, Acinetobacter baumanii, and B. anthracis, and the state of bacterial genomics past, present, and future. Host: Julie Wolf Subscribe (free) on iPhone, Android, RSS, or by email. You can also listen on your mobile device with the ASM Podcast app. Julie's biggest takeaways: Genome sequencing speed has significantly increased: The first bacterial genome sequenced, Haemophilus influenzae, took about 10 years to complete. The first organism with two sequenced genomes was Helicobacter pylori, published in 1999, and the first organism with three published genomes was Escherichia coli. Rasko’s initial project at TIGR to sequence 11 E. coli genomes took about 2 years. Today, Rasko’s lab can sequence 500 genomes in about five days.   In E. coli, up to half of the genome can differ between two strains. The core genome is the collection of genes that will be shared among all isolates of a particular species. Core gene conservation varies among species and is important to consider in analyses for one’s species of interest.   Working on the Amerithrax investigation was unlike many other scientific inquiries for many reasons, including that the Federal Bureau of Investigation only gave the scientists involved the information pieces necessary to conduct their studies. Rasko and collaborators sequenced the genomes of spores within the samples, and found that the morphology of the colonies that grew were associated with genetic differences between the spores within the sample, linking phenotype and genotype.   While comparative genomics can provide a lot of information, there are some phenomena that will always require further study. For example, Rasko is researching isolates of A. baumanii and Klebiella pneumoniae that quickly develop drug resistance when grown in sub-inhibitory drug concentrations. The genomic sequences of resistant or susceptible strains show no difference in DNA sequence, suggesting the phenotype is due to transcriptional changes. Featured Quotes (in order of appearance) “Genomics is fun in that we can hypothesize all day long, every day. It’s really the start of a lot of very very hard work figuring out why.” “There’s a lot of DNA pieces that we don’t fully understand how they moved, where they moved, where they came from. In some cases, there’s evidence to say where they came from; in terms of G-C content and coding biases, we can make some assumptions, but in the grand scheme of things, we have no idea where they’re coming from! In some cases, we’ll see them dominant throughout a lineage, and in some cases we’ll see them in sporadic isolates around the entire phylogenetic tree. . .We all thought genomics was going to solve so many problems, and it’s really just made it more difficult!” “Plasmids tend to be mobile and exchangeable, and the pieces tend to be - I tend to think of them as legos, in the fact that you can put a plasmid together in a bunch of different ways.” “I think a lot of conventional PCR fails and people assume that it’s because it’s negative, and not necessarily that it fails because of diversity.” “Many microbiologists think of that colony on a plate as a clone. I force the people in my group to think about it a little differently, because it’s really what I like to call ‘genome space’. They’re not all the same; bacteria are constantly evolving. There’s changes all the time, some of them are positive, some of the are negative, the negative ones get lost, the positive ones unusually become dominant - and then there’s lots of neutral changes that just kind of hang out.” “Genomes really normalized everything. Before that, there were certain labs that could clone and there were certain labs that could sequence, and it was a little bit restrictive to the elite labs who had those resources. Now with the genome sequences out there, everyone was starting from the same place.” “You really have to understand your organism to make the bioinformatics work.” Links for this episode Rasko lab at the University of Maryland FBI summary of Amerithrax investigation 2011 PNAS report on B. anthracis comparative genomics Bugs N the ‘hood HOM Tidbit: Stanley Falkow gives both video history and written history of plasmid biology Save on Microbe 2018, use code: asmpod Send your stories about our guests and/or your comments to jwolf@asmusa.org.

Bill Jacobs talks about developing mycobacterial genetic tools and using them to discover ways to shorten TB treatment. He also talks about the SEA-PHAGES program that allows high-school students to participate in phage discovery. Host: Julie Wolf Subscribe (free) on iPhone, Android, RSS, or by email. You can also listen on your mobile device with the ASM Podcast app. Julie's biggest takeaways: The challenges of working with an easily aerosolized bacterium are aided by complementary studies on a noninfectious relative. M. smegmatus doesn’t colonize mammals and grows slower, giving researchers the opportunity to acclimate themselves to working with mycobacterial cultures. Jacobs was the first scientist to introduce DNA into M. tuberculosis using a phasmid - part plasmid, part mycobacterial phage. The first phage came from Jacobs’ dirt yard in the Bronx, so he named it BxB1 for the Bronx Bomber. Another phage, TM4, became the workhorse phasmid when Jacobs cloned an E. coli cosmid sequence into a nonessential part of the phage genome. It replicates in E. coli as a plasmid but becomes a phage inside Mycobacteria, facilitating manipulation. The shuttle phasmids allowed transposon delivery to make transposon libraries, and the creation of gene knockouts. To this day, we use Ziehl-Neelsen staining to differentiate acid-fast mycobacteria from gram-positive or gram-negative bacteria - the mycolic acids on the outer part of the envelope make up some of the longest microbial lipid chains. But mycobacteria can regulate its acid-fast positive or negative status; the acid-fast negative organisms are a persistent population that are often ignored inside of patients. 99.99% of M. tuberculosis bacteria are not persistent, but the last 0.1% have entered into a persistent state expressing many stress proteins that help them become refractory to killing. A normal course of antibiotic chemotherapy for patients is six months. If infected with a strain resistant to the two frontline drugs, that time goes up to two years. The problem is even greater in extremely multidrug resistant (XDR) strains. What we really need is a way to understand persistence and a way to shorten chemotherapy. That’s why were were absolutely amazed when we discovered that cysteine with isoniazid completely sterilizes Mtb cultures in vitro and in vivo! The culture is sterilized because the bacteria can’t form persisters. Vitamin C co-treatment with antibiotics may lead to a shortened course of therapy for TB treatment. Neutralizing antibodies to the herpesvirus glycoprotein have been the dogma for protecting from herpes. Jacobs and his colleagues discovered that a vaccine based on a glycoprotein-knockout virus confers sterilizing immunity not through neutralizing antibodies but through antibody-dependent cell cytoxicity (ADCC). This ADCC response may also be important to develop a more effective TB vaccine.   Featured Quotes (in order of appearance): “You’ll never know how bad your aseptic technique is until you start working with tuberculosis!” “I think part of the reason I had the opportunity to develop genetics for TB - it’s not like it wasn’t important to do - but a lot of people were disappointed when working with the organism.” “We’re about to take TB genetics to where yeast genetics is.” “One of the tubicle bacilli’s greatest powers or one of its most important phenotypes is that it has the ability to persist, which means it has the ability to tolerate killing effectors, either killing by the immune system or killing by bactericidal drugs.” “I took students to the Bronx Zoo, and over by the zebra pen, I sniffed and said ‘I smell a phage!’ In fact, that’s not crazy - anyone who plants flowers knows what good soil smells like, and in the good soil, you’re smelling the bacteria that live in the soil, the Streptomyces and Mycobacteria. I reached down and grabbed that dirt, and when we went back to work we isolated BxE1.” “I’ve never met a phage I wasn’t excited about!” “I now believe that most pathogens do not ‘want’ ADCC antibodies to be made, and they have immune evasion strategies where they skew the immune response to get the wrong antibodies. Since the time we published our first paper, numerous groups have shown that correlates of protection for HIV, for influenza, and for Zika, turn out to be ADCC antibodies.” “Genetics is the mathematics of biology!”   Links for this episode Bill Jacobs lab site NYTimes story on 1993 rapid diagnostic test using luciferase AACJournal: Vitamin C potentiates the killing of Mycobacterium tuberculosis by the first-line tuberculosis drugs isoniazid and rifampicin in mice Cell: Origins of highly mosaic mycobacteriophage genomes SEA-PHAGES program eLife: Whole genome comparison of a large collection of mycobacteriophages reveals a continuum of phage genetic diversity mBio: Dual-reported mycobacteriophages (Φ2DRMs) reveal preexisting Mycobacterium tuberculosis persistent cells in human sputum Tuberculosis - Its cause, cure and prevention [1914] (pdf)   Send your stories about our guests and/or your comments to jwolf@asmusa.org.  

Most bacteria live a sedentary lifestyle in community structures called biofilms. Vaughn Cooper tells us what bacterial biofilms are, why biofilms differ from test tube environments, and how long-term evolution experiments combined with population genomics are teaching us how bacteria really work. He also discusses using hands-on bacterial evolution activities to introduce high schoolers to future STEM possibilities. Host: Julie Wolf Subscribe (free) on iPhone, Android, RSS, or by email. You can also listen on your mobile device with the ASM Podcast app. Julie's biggest takeaways: Cells in a biofilm shift to dedicate their resources to protection rather than reproduction. This allows biofilms to be innately more resistant to antibiotics than those growing in planktonic culture. One of the least-understood parts of a biofilm cycle is the dispersal stage. What cues or signals influence some biofilm-embedded cells to leave? This is a vital part of biofilm formation, since these dispersal cells can eventually attach to a new surface and restart the process of forming a biofilm. The bead system of biofilm propagation allows Vaughn and his colleagues to study the long-term evolution of biofilms. This system, combined with population genomics, allows the study of all the different genetic changes within the population. Traditional genetic screens compare libraries of mutants to see which survive under different conditions. Rather than on libraries of mutant strains, evolution works on random mutants that arise naturally. The accessibility of sequencing technologies has changed the way scientists study evolution, as now the mutations can be found as they form, rather than being seeded into the initial mutant library screen. High schoolers using nonpathogenic bacteria can study evolution in action by developing new colony morphologies. Work with high schoolers and their teachers has shown students who do hands-on learning do better on standardized tests and that girls, especially, express higher interest in technology and an interest in STEM careers after a 1-2 week project. Featured Quotes (in order of appearance) “From a perspective of an ecologist and evolutionary biologist, this is what captivated me about biofilms: that instantly in the process of forming a biofilm, the environment becomes heterogeneous. Different cells that are clone mates are experiencing different selective pressures.” “The hypothesis that we’ve been testing for the last 15 years or so is that biofilms in and of themselves may generate ecological and heritable evolutionary diversity in really short periods of time.” "In describing the wrinkled Pseudomonas colonies that can stem from biofilm cells: “I think they look like hydrangeas, and some look more like doilies. I think they’re captivating and pretty charismatic as far as microbes go.” “The average bacteria picked from any environment does an unbelieveably good job of protecting its genetic material. The per-cell mutation rate, per-genome, per-generation rate is about 1 in 1000 cells. So a bacterial cell needs to divide about 1000 times to create a single mutant. That means that mutations are actually relatively scarce, but bacterial populations are extraordinarily immense. If you grow a single cell to 108 cells, you’ve got about 105 new mutations. That’s a pretty large number. Some of them, maybe a handful, maybe 1/100 of those 105 mutations, which would be about 1000, would be beneficial. Then selection will act on them, and the better ones will rise more quickly because they make more progeny. And that’s evolution in action!” “Increasingly, we’re using evolution to teach us about how the organism works.” “I’m not saving lives with any of our studies on microbes in biofilm-associated infections just yet. We are seeing how they change in these infection and how they become more drug resistant. That’s great, and I think that’s a valuable contribution. But when we can encourage hundreds of high schoolers to really consider careers in the life sciences or mathematics or engineering, we’re changing lives.” Links for this episode Vaughn Cooper University of Pittsburgh website Rich Lenski Long-Term Evolution Experiment ASM video Journal of Bacteriology cover featuring Pseudomonas colonies Journal of Bacteriology report on the evolution of Pseudomonas biofilm diversity Journal of Bacteriology tribute to Bill Costerton Bill Costerton YouTube interview Send your stories about our guests and/or your comments to jwolf@asmusa.org.  

Marylynn Yates discusses how the urban water cycle and its importance in eliminating waterborne pathogens. She describes the types of microbes that can survive in water and how testing for different microbial types can affect interpretation of contamination levels. Host: Julie Wolf Subscribe (free) on iPhone, Android, RSS, or by email. You can also listen on your mobile device with the ASM Podcast app. Julie's biggest takeaways: Worldwide, water is a large source of infectious disease. Billions of people have no access to safe water and this culminates in 1.5 billion cases of diarrhea and 1.5 million deaths from contaminated water annually. The urban water cycle takes water from lakes or the ground for its first treatment before delivery to our homes. Water leaving our homes as waste water goes to a second facility where water is given a different set of treatments to eliminate disease-causing microbes before the water is returned to lakes or rivers. Different treatment facilities are needed because the concentration of contaminants is different in water before and after use in our homes. Crystal clear spring water can be deceiving, but can carry disease-causing microbes. Animals can carry protozoans such as Giardia and Cryptosporidium, which also cause disease in people. This is why treating water, even with a simple boiling procedure, is important when backpacking or camping. Bacterial sentinels such as Escherichia coli can be used to measure potential bacterial pathogen presence, but they don’t measure pathogenic protozoans or viruses. This is in part because the treatment necessary to eliminate bacteria is different than that necessary to eliminate protozoans and viruses. Some scientists argue that bacteriophage are a better measure of potential pathogenic virus present, though no regulations require phage monitoring. Others argue that detection of a spore-forming bacteria, such as Clostridium perfringens, would better predict protozoan presence.   Featured Quotes (in order of appearance): “Because there is no new water on Earth, we need to make sure that after we use water that we treat it in a way so that when it’s used again as drinking water, it’s as clean as it can possibly be.” “Some viruses are very hardy and can survive for a long time (outside their host cell). They don’t need nutrients like bacteria do, so they just sit there - almost like a chemical contaminant.” “Some of these viruses, such as hepatitis A virus or norovirus, can survive for a long time in the environment. When I say ‘quite a long time’, I mean for weeks or months, or in the case of hepatitis A, there was one report that it lasted up to a couple of years.” “It’s that real-world application that has kept me going for all these years, knowing that I can have an impact on public health in my own, tiny way.”   Links for this episode Marylynn Yates website at UCR Marylynn Yate interview with UCR mBiosphere blog post on developing water safety testing with the EPA mBiosphere blog post on developing new technologies for water safety testing Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal Sentinel 20th Anniversary of Cryptosporidiosis Outbreak Monsters Inside Me: Cryptosporidiosis   Send your stories about our guests and/or your comments to jwolf@asmusa.org.

Colleen Kraft talks about treating Americans who became sick with Ebola during the west African outbreak and were evacuated to her hospital for treatment. In the second half, Kraft talks about her experience performing fecal transfers, and explains why she sees the gut microflora like a garden. Host: Julie Wolf Subscribe (free) on iPhone, Android, RSS, or by email. You can also listen on your mobile device with the ASM Podcast app. Julie's biggest takeaways: The patient conditions couldn’t be more different between the Liberian care centers and Emory University. The nursing ratio, access to both basic and experimental medicines, and even environmental conditions such as air conditioning created drastically different healthcare experiences between the two. While Ebola is a deadly disease, the symptoms such as headache, fever, and diarrhea are much more common than the bloody hemorrhaging often described. Patients can lose up to 10 liters of fluid each day! Fecal microbiota transfer is a more appropriate name than transplant; new microbes overlaid on top of the dysbiotic flora will reshape the microbiota already present. While FMT is currently used only to treat C. difficile (aka C. diff), forthcoming studies will determine if FMT can decrease risk of an antibiotic-resistant infection by displacing resistant bacteria. Featured Quotes(in order of appearance) “Ebola virus disease is much more mundane than all of the novels you might read. It’s really a sepsis syndrome with a spectrum of that sepsis. Part of sepsis can be abnormal coagulation factors and low platelets, and so those bleeding complications go along with that sepsis syndrome.” “It sounds really mundane, but supportive care is really the most important thing for these patients. When that can occur, people can recover.” “The body doesn’t really like Ebola. One patient was encephalopathic, had kidney failure, liver failure, had some bleeding. Once the viral load was gone, all those things uprighted! It was like a capsized ship that uprighted.” “I really view our guts like gardens. There are good fruits and vegetables when our gardens are in homeostasis. Once we use antibiotics, it kills the good fruits and vegetables of the garden and C. diff grows up like a weed. All we’re doing [when we treat C. diff] is giving weed killer but we’re not replanting that garden.” “I’m somebody who thinks after every antibiotic treatment for anything that we do, we should be giving people some sort of item to enrich or restore their microbiome.” “The most exciting thing I can think of is to bring cutting-edge research and contributing to people being cured by these methods.”   Links for this episode Colleen Kraft Emory website And the Band played on Virus Hunters of the CDC The Hot Zone NETEC Clinical Virology Symposium Send your stories about our guests and/or your comments to jwolf@asmusa.org.  

Sabra Klein addresses the question: how does biological sex influence influenza infection and vaccination? She explains her findings on inflammation differences between males and females, and how these differences can affect the outcome of disease. Klein also discusses her advocacy for inclusion of biological sex in method reporting as a means to improve scientific rigor. Host: Julie Wolf Subscribe (free) on iPhone, Android, RSS, or by email. You can also listen on your mobile device with the ASM Podcast app. Julie's biggest takeaways: Information from the 1918 influenza pandemic suggested males died at a higher rate than females, which could be due to a gender fator or a biological factor. In 1918, men lived in close quarters of military barracks while women didn’t, representing a cultural difference of gender norms (women were exempted from military duty). But males are more susceptible to secondary bacterial infections that often accompany flu, which may represent a biological difference in infection outcome. In Klein’s studies, female mice suffer influenza more severely than males. Women who contracted the H1N1 flu epidemic in 2009 were more likely to be hospitalized with severe influenza than men. These data have yet to be aligned and leave many variables yet to explore! Influenza infection disrupts the female menstrual cycle, causing lowered estrogen and progesterone levels. Providing exogenous progesterone can dampen inflammation and stimulate repair mechanisms needed to fix the damaged lung tissue. This type of host treatment is less likely to lead to the evolution of resistance than using antiviral compounds. Females and males respond differently to vaccination; females mount a higher antibody response and have greater cross-protection than males. Many diseases in addition to influenza show these sex-specific differences. The sex differences observed are specific to age; with older age, the differences are lost. In several other countries, epidemiological and clinical data are analyzed for differences between sexes. With greater awareness, the United States may incorporate this practice too.   Featured Quotes (in order of appearance): “Both genes as well as the hormones define the biological construct of sex.” “There’s an ample amount of data that suggest men are less likely to wash their hands than women. We all know handwashing is probably one of the best ways to avoid contact with viruses - really anything infectious. We always have to question if we do things that influence our exposure; but in our mice studies, we can control their exposure.” “We really have a love-hate relationship with inflammation. We need it to recognize the presence of the virus, but then we need it to dissipate. Our data suggest hormones are integral to regulating inflammation and the repair following inflammation.” “The immune responses to the influenza vaccine - and this extends to many vaccines - are often higher in females as compared with males. This has been shown in humans as well as animal models.” “I don’t know that I think that man flu is real. I think a lot can depend on both your age as well as your vaccine status that can influence whether you’re going to land in the hospital with severe influenza. Much like we were talking about with individuals who don’t have a vaccine, such as during a pandemic, females may be suffering a bit more, but once vaccinated females seem to do better than males. There are some nuances we shouldn’t lose sight of.”   Links for this episode Sabra Klein website Klein speaking on heart disease differences in men and women Klein editorial in mBio: Sex reporting in microbiological and immunological research Smithsonian exhibit notification HOM Tidbit: Smithsonian article: How the horrific 1918 flu spread across America HOM Tidbit: Aeon article: Who names diseases? Send your stories about our guests and/or your comments to jwolf@asmusa.org.

Jennifer Martiny describes the incredible microbial biodiversity of natural ecosystems such as soils and waterways. She explains how to add a bit of control in experiments with so many variables, and why categorizing microbial types is important for quantifying patterns. Host: Julie Wolf Subscribe (free) on iPhone, Android, RSS, or by email. You can also listen on your mobile device with the ASM Podcast app. Julie's biggest takeaways: Studying microbial community functions in their natural environment are harder to understand, but help us to parse the complexity of the natural world, in part because these experiments also include local flora and fauna that are often omitted in the controlled lab environment. Microbial cages - an actual physical barrier that contains a soil-based community - can help to disentangle the effects of the microbial community from those of the surrounding environment by adding a level of control by limiting interaction of microbes inside the nylon mesh cage with those outside of it. Are microbial functions redundant? It depends on what function you look at - respiration is a very common function, so it’s less likely to be affected by a change in microbiome composition. Other functions, such as degrading particular compounds, may have a stronger relationship between the microbes present and those functions. Microbes are hugely diverse! Jennifer’s comparison of all the diversity of the birds on Earth to a single bacterial taxon is mind-blowing! Microbial categorization may be hard, but the ability to group similar organisms is necessary to formulate hypotheses and conduct experiments. It’s important to remember the groupings are manmade and sometimes have to be reconstructed!   Featured Quotes (in order of appearance) “One of the hardest things we study is not on the microbiology side but is on the ecosystem side, measuring those biochemical functions in the environment.” (10:05) “It’s not as if we are ever going to be able to study every particular organism out there and build a model with thousands of equations; instead what we really need to do is go after trade-offs and overall relationships that may hold across large groups, and in that way have some simple rules under different conditions like drought or temperature.” (16:45) "Modern birds evolved about 100, 125 million years ago. Two sequences that share the 16S gene, if it’s roughly 97% identical, probably diverged 150 million years ago. That means we are lumping in all the diversity within the bacteria group within one taxon, calling it a species, which is the equivalent of lumping all birds together!" (18:47) “It’s a bit overwhelming to imagine that for each 16S rRNA taxon, you could have as much functional, morphological, and behavioral diversity as what we see in all of birds!” (19:39) “In biology, we’re always using an operational definition but we don’t want to get too hung up on the definition and miss all the interesting patterns going on!” (20:49) “If you can start to quantify patterns, then you can start to ask ecological and even evolutionary questions about why we see those patterns.” (33:04)   Links for this episode Jennifer Martiny Lab Home Page University of California Irvine Microbiome Initiative HOM Tidbit: TWIM 50: These things aren’t even bacteria! Carl Woese Obituary (New York Times) Carl Woese 1996 Feature (New York Times) Send your stories about our guests and/or your comments to jwolf@asmusa.org.

Peter Hotez talks about neglected tropical diseases: what are they, where are they found, and where did the term “neglected tropical disease” come from, anyway? Hotez discusses some of the strategies his and other groups are using for vaccine development, and his work as an advocate for childhood vaccines and global health. Host: Julie Wolf Subscribe (free) on iPhone, Android, RSS, or by email. You can also listen on your mobile device with the ASM Podcast app. Julie's biggest takeaways: Renaming “other diseases” - a large collection of disparate diseases such as schistosomiasis, leishmaniasis, and onchocerciasis (also called river blindness) - as “neglected tropical diseases” by Hotez and colleagues was integral to bringing attention to the diseases of the bottom billion, people that live on less than one U.S. Dollar per day. Neglected tropical diseases are often chronic and debilitating without high mortality. These diseases trap people in poverty due to their long-term effects. The NTDs are often associated with terrible stigma that can lead to additional challenges for affected populations. Neglected tropical diseases are found worldwide, in rich and poor countries. The poorest peoples living in the G20 countries (and Nigeria) now account for most of the world’s NTDs. Parasitic infections present challenges for vaccine design, but reverse vaccinology may be a useful strategy. Reverse vaccinology mines genomes to identify promising vaccine candidates in silico, which are then narrowed sequentially for those that are expressed on the bacterial surface, immunogenic, and ultimately protective against disease. This strategy has worked for Neisseria meningitidis, and Hotez is hopeful that it will produce effective vaccines for the parasitic infections he studies. The tradition of individual fields and departments, combined with the old-fashioned notion that scientists needn’t spend their time engaging with the public, has led to flatlined budgets and the rise of anti-science movements. Scientists need to engage the public to ensure the future of science and science-based policy.   Featured Quotes (in order of appearance): “The concept of ‘neglected tropical diseases’ was very much born out of the Millennium Development Goals launched in the year 2000.”   “Treating NTDs in rich countries “is not a resource problem; it’s an awareness problem.”   “If you want to enter global health, we need as many people with a scientific background to go into business and law and international relations as we need to go into traditional scientific pathways”   “Many involved in the antivaccine movement disproportionately involve either parents who are affluent or educated, or both: those who know just enough to do a google search but without the background to separate the garbage from the important stuff. And of course the anti-vaccine groups are deliberately misleading.”   “Research America found that 81% of Americans can’t name a living scientist. That’s our fault. We’re so inward looking that we aren’t taking the time to do public engagement.”   Links for this episode Peter Hotez at Baylor College of Medicine Peter Hotez website Millennium Development Goals published by the World Health Organization in 2000 WHO list of Neglected Tropical Diseases Forgotten People, Forgotten Diseases by Peter Hotez Blue Marble Health by Peter Hotez Public Health United episode featuring Hotez HOM Tidbit: Oncocerciasis now: 1986 British Medical Journal report Send your stories about our guests and/or your comments to jwolf@asmusa.org.

Stacey Schultz-Cherry explains the selection process to choose the influenza virus strains to include in the annual influenza vaccine. Schultz-Cherry also discusses her research on the influence of obesity on the course of disease and vaccine efficacy. Host: Julie Wolf Subscribe (free) on iPhone, Android, RSS, or by email. You can also listen on your mobile device with the ASM Podcast app. Julie's biggest takeaways: The WHO Collaborating Centers and National Influenza Centers around the world work with a humongous network of physicians, public health workers, and veterinarians to identify strains most likely to become part of the circulating influenza viruses. An influenza strain that makes birds very sick is not necessarily a strain that will make people sick. Predicting phenotype from genotype remains a challenge. Receptor binding to mammalian receptors, signatures in the genome that allow it to replicate in mammalian cells, and transmission between ferrets are the marks of potentially bad strains. Genetics can also tell you a little bit about the antiviral resistance characteristics of a strain. Why can’t we incorporate all known influenza strains into a vaccine? It’s an issue of immunodominance - having enough antibodies against an infectious agent that it will be neutralized should it cause infection. Researchers don’t know how many HAs you can incorporate to generate proper immunity to each molecular version, and this is one area of influenza vaccine research. Obesity appears to decrease the immune response to influenza, potentially affecting the ability to form memory response. This means the vaccine is less effective, the course of disease when infected is worse, and the likelihood of secondary bacterial infection is higher. Featured Quotes (in order of appearance) “People don’t appreciate how much work goes into this. The importance of surveillance - if we lose our surveillance, it’s going to be very difficult to know which strains to select for the vaccine, as well as diagnostics.”   “Part of the trick is not just predicting which viral strain to use but understanding which of those strains will grow to the highest efficiency without changing when we grow it in eggs to make the vaccine.”   “My bet is, whatever we find, it’s going to end up being 10 times more complicated...which is great for my post-docs, because there’s plenty of opportunities for them to find new things and build new labs, which is ultimately the most important thing you can do as a P.I.”   “I did wound repair during my Ph.D. . . . with my background in wound repair, I said ‘what is a virus but a great big wound”    “When I was changing fields, my thesis committee asked me, ‘what are you doing? I was told it would take five years just to read the literature. You can’t change fields!’ And I said, ‘Yeah, I can.’” And I did!   “Whatever your decision is, you go for it you don’t have regrets, but you put 110% into whatever you decide to do.”   Links for this episode Stacey Schultz-Cherry St. Jude Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences CDC Flu Activity Map HOM Tidbit: Vaccination against Influenza (review) Send your stories about our guests and/or your comments to jwolf@asmusa.org.

Gigi Kwik Gronvall talks to MTM about the importance of biopreparedness. Gronvall discusses her work in creating policies around potential natural, accidental, and man-made pandemics. She describes her experiences running pandemic thought exercises that help researchers, public health workers, and governmental officials apply preparedness ideas to real-world simulations. Host: Julie Wolf Julie's biggest takeaways: Thought exercises and scenarios work well for people to understand how technology, communications, human behaviors can affect the spread of infectious disease. Many after-action reports after major biosecurity breaches, such as the Dugway contamination event, where inactivated Bacillus anthracis was accidentally shipped without being inactivated. These involve reports on what went wrong, who made mistakes, and how to prevent repeats of these errors going forward. International groups such as the Global Health Security Alliance work with governments and institutions around the world to run dialogs and talk about biosecurity issues, safety issues, pathogen management issues. Comparing notes across countries helps to harmonize policies and find gaps that need addressing. Bringing scientists into the policy-making meetings is the best way to write regulations in a way to protect the public, the scientists, and the research itself. Crafting good recommendations for governance prevents writing regulations that can be hard to remove. Featured Quotes (in order of appearance): “There’s a public health infrastructure that’s needed to detect epidemics and respond to them appropriately. If you are lacking that infrastructure, it’s like not having a fire department anywhere close when there’s a fire. The fire gets bigger and bigger, it becomes much more difficult to be able to put out the fire, and a lot of lives are lost.” “The thinking behind the GHSA is to boost public health infrastructure in different parts of the world that need it and to focus donor attention on some of those areas so that the weakest links are made stronger." “It’s going to shock no one, but it’s not always the case that the best scientific information is brought to bear on a policy issue." “You have to do what you can to make things a little bit harder, a little bit more challenging but still allow real, legitimate, important science to continue. Everybody sees that balance a little bit differently." “It’s important to me that we have someone advocating for the science and making it so it’s not onerous to be a scientist." “Synthetic biology changes the way we think about what biology can do. Biology has a bigger potential to be involved in industrial processes than it used to have." “The problem with a lot of these pathogens is that they exist in nature...you can’t take care of all options, unfortunately." "You can’t ever be fully prepared, but you can be in the right mindset to be surprised." Links for this episode Gigi Kwik Gronvall website at Johns Hopkins University SPARS epidemic pamphlet Preparing for Bioterrorism: The Alfred P Sloan Foundation’s Leadership in Biosecurity: Book by Gronvall Synthetic Biology: Safety, Security, and Bioterrorism: Book by Gronvall The Global Health Security Alliance homepage Send your stories about our guests and your comments (email or recorded audio) to jwolf@asmusa.org.

Jack Gilbert talks about his studies on microbiomes of all sorts. He describes the origin of the Earth Microbiome Project, which has ambitions to characterize all microbial life on the planet, and talks more specifically about the built microbiome of manmade ecosystems such as hospitals. Gilbert explains how advances in scientific techniques have driven past microbiome-related discoveries and will continue to do so in the future. Host: Julie Wolf Subscribe (free) on iPhone, Android, RSS, or by email. You can also listen on your mobile device with the ASM Podcast app. Julie's biggest takeaways: Insect-pathogenic fungi living in plant roots can pass nitrogen from killed insects to their plant hosts, receiving different carbon nutrients from the plants in return. Fungi harvested after growth on inexpensive materials like chicken droppings are used in agriculture both as fertilizer and as insecticide. Cyclosporine was first discovered in insect-pathogenic fungi. Raymond St. Leger and other scientists working to introduce genetically modified microbes into the environment deeply consider the societal effects of their work, including collaboration with local communities, governmental regulatory bodies, and trusted leaders and tailor their efforts to the regional area. Featured Quotes (in order of appearance): “We really can apply ecological understanding of microbiomes and microbial ecosystems to any environment.” “I think basic research is absolutely essential but I always want to think about what that could lead to in the future.” “Reproducibility is key and extraordinarily difficult in all fields of science due to lack of appropriate funding and a zeitgeist in science that discourages scientists from reproducing one another’s studies.” “We are forever striving to validate the predictions we derive from our descriptive work. We create SO MANY predictions!” “No small dreams, no small goals - go big or go home! At the end of the day, we all want to feel like we’re doing something that makes an impact.” “I love to collaborate. I love to work with other people, brilliant people in the microbiome field” “I’m often accused of not being focused enough. What does Jack Gilbert do? Well, I do a little bit of everything - as long as there’s a microbe involved! I like it like that; it keeps me energized.” Links for this episode Jack Gilbert website at University of Chicago Jack Gilbert TedxNaperville Talk Earth Microbiome Project home page Dirt is Good - new book by Gilbert and Rob Knight History of Microbiology Tidbit: Joshua Lederberg piece in The Scientist on ‘microbiome’ nomenclature in 2001. Send your stories about our guests and your comments (email or recorded audio) to jwolf@asmusa.org.

Story:   You may have that one last email, text, blog to get done, but do you do it?   Listen to this episode to hear about why Sabah and Dan always end the day strong by doing that one last thing that is on their to-do list.   A few highlights of what you will hear:   Why Sabah and Dan always push themselves to do that one last thing. How it teaches you discipline. Sabah’s story about her blog. How to push yourself to finish the day strong. Why you should batch your work. Never have regrets on not doing something.   Impactful Quotes:   “The day went by and I got even more busy -- but that didn’t stop me from publishing my blog at 8 o'clock at night.” -Sabah   “There are so many times that I think I am done for the day but really there's always a couple more things I have to get done.” -Dan   “I’ve done it every single week ever since I started so I just had to do it.” -Sabah   “Until night falls and you are in bed, the day is still going.” -Dan   “Blogs, Instagram posts, stuff like that is so small that anyone can really fit that into their schedule no matter how busy they are.” -Sabah   “It all comes back to that content creation, when you are building your brand.” -Dan   “That Monday was rare for me when I wrote my blog and put it out within 30 minutes.” -Sabah   “You shouldn’t be satisfied until you hit all of your goals for the day.” -Dan   “You don’t want to let your audience down if you don’t put out that blog or do that video that you’ve been doing.” -Sabah   Featured Quotes:   “I know it's hard. Just keep going anyway. You’ll thank yourself after 30 minutes.”   Start now!   Connect with us! Sabah Ali and Dan Tieman. Follow us on Instagram: @Sabah.ali14 & @Dtieman1 Our Snapchats: @Sabahh14 & @Tieman - Snap us!

Story:   Rejection is tough when you are trying something new with your business. You need more clients but every time you hear the word ‘no’ it kills you.   Listen to this episode to hear about how Sabah and Dan deal with rejection and how the word ‘no’ is more of a motivation to them rather than a failure.   A few highlights of what you will hear:   How Sabah and Dan deal with rejection. Different experience where rejection took place. How to deal with hard times in your business. Different ways to push yourself to keep going. Why you shouldn’t give up.   Impactful Quotes:   “My favorite part in sales is the rejection part-- said no one ever.” -Dan   “If you talk to them on a daily basis eventually they will buy from you.” -Sabah   “If you're not willing to deal with 100 no’s before you get to a yes then you're going to be out of business before you know it.” -Dan   “I kept getting rejected, either I was too young or I didn’t have enough experience.” -Sabah   “You can’t dwell on the no’s you gotta keep moving forward.” -Dan   “Keep pushing because eventually you will get that big yes that you’re looking for.” -Sabah   Featured Quotes:   “A rejection is nothing more than a necessary step in the pursuit of success.” -Bo Bennett   “Trust that when the answer is no, there's a better yes down the road.” Start now!   Connect with us! Sabah Ali and Dan Tieman. Follow us on Instagram: @Sabah.ali14 & @Dtieman1 Our Snapchats: @Sabahh14 & @Tieman - Snap us!

Our Guest:   Chelsea Lee Rock is a voice actor who created an academy "The actor in you, acting secrets that help you land any business venture." She is eligible for Screen Actors Guild and has voiced over 30 books for kindle and audible. She has also created a program that helps women in business find their creative outlet by using skills she had learned as an actor. Professionally, she has been in film and tv for 7 years and in voice acting for 4 years. She has been featured in magazines such as Magic Image Hollywood Magazine, American Fitness, FINE magazine, and many more.   Story:   From taking a big step of leaving the midwest to pursuing her dream of acting in California, today we have our guest Chelsea Lee Rock.   A few highlights of what you will hear:   Chelsea’s journey from where she started. How she moved from the midwest to California. How she found her passion of voice overs. Chelsea’s routine on a day to day basis. She is in the process of writing a book. Chelsea’s Academy. "The actor in you, acting secrets that help you land any business venture.” How she stays consistent with everything. Where she sees herself in the future.   Impactful Quotes from Chelsea:   “I loved acting but I realized that I really love to help people.”   “Take skills that I learned as an actor to turn it into some sort of business.”   “I’ve always wanted to be an actor since I was 6.”   “Voice overs are my bread and butter.”   “Building that clientele, I have a lot of things in the work.”   “Be okay with not getting the job right away.”   “There's no such thing as a creative person, it's about you figuring out your creativity.”   “The quicker you fail the faster you win.”   Featured Quotes:   “One person with a dream is equal to 99 with just an interest.” Connect with Chelsea!   Instagram- @chelsealeerockfit Website Facebook   Start now!   Connect with us! Sabah Ali and Dan Tieman. Follow us on Instagram: @Sabah.ali14 & @Dtieman1 Our Snapchats: @Sabahh14 & @Tieman - Snap us!

Story:   Everyone encounters stress at one point in their life and it can be a lot to take on when you have a million other things to worry about. You stress about things to get done and then stress about the fact that you are stressed out, either way it's never good for your body.   Listen to this episode to hear about how Sabah and Dan handle stressful situations and steps they take so they don’t overwhelm themselves.   A few highlights of what you will hear:   How Sabah and Dan handle stress. How to choose the right opportunities. Does it align with your main goal? What are you going to get out of it? Why you shouldn’t take on too many projects at once. Steps to take when you’re stressed out. Focus on one thing first. Ask for help. Don’t stress about stress. Take time for yourself. Batch your work. Why it’s important to take breaks. (Working out) Create a schedule.   Impactful Quotes:   “I can finally do my own thing but that means I am doing a lot more.” -Sabah   “I weigh out the options on the return of the investment, what am I going to get out of it.” -Dan   “It’s hard to choose exactly which ones to stick with and run with.” -Sabah   “There needs to be longer than 24 hours in one day.” -Dan   “They focus on numerous things at once so they don’t actually get that much done.” -Sabah   “Say yes and then figure it out later.” -Dan   “Thinking about everything at once is not going to help your situation at all.” -Sabah   Featured Quotes:   “It’s not stress that kills us, it’s our reaction to it.” Start now!   Connect with us! Sabah Ali and Dan Tieman. Follow us on Instagram: @Sabah.ali14 & @Dtieman1 Our Snapchats: @Sabahh14 & @Tieman - Snap us!

Story:   Excuses are what separate you from the huge amounts of success that you can have. We tell ourselves and other people excuses all the time that they have become a bad habit.   Listen to this episode to hear about how Sabah and Dan have trained themselves to see the opportunities in every situation and not take the easy way out and make up excuses.   A few highlights of what you will hear:   How Sabah and Dan block out excuses from their daily lives. Why excuses are a bad habit to have. How opportunities will come and go. Why excuses are similar to telling yourself a lie. How people make excuses of not achieving their new year's resolutions. No excuses to not achieve goals that you make.   Impactful Quotes:   “Making up excuses is really the stepping stones to failure.” -Dan   “Now I just take them as opportunities and just go with it.” -Sabah   “The synergy was flowing and it was awesome we learned so much by doing that instead of making the excuse of not going.” -Dan   “Excuses are pretty much just lying to yourself about things that you think you can’t do.” -Sabah   “What are you doing today that's going to put you in a better position for tomorrow?” -Dan   “Honestly, 85% if not more people have already given up on their new year's resolutions.” -Sabah   “Have a power list which forces you to get things done every single day.” -Dan   “There is always a way to do something.” -Sabah   “It’s the shiny objects that get people distracted.” -Dan   “You can probably accomplish so much more than you think you can, you just have to do it.” -Sabah   Featured Quotes:   “Excuses will always be there for you, but opportunities wont.”   “There are only two options: make progress or make an excuse.”   Start now!   Connect with us! Sabah Ali and Dan Tieman. Follow us on Instagram: @Sabah.ali14 & @Dtieman1 Our Snapchats: @Sabahh14 & @Tieman - Snap us!

Our Guest:   Akbar Sheikh is a Two-Comma Club award winning expert entrepreneur that is creating sales funnels for his clients as he has made a 7 figure living off of this. Akbar shares his journey with us on how he came from a dark place of being homeless, not knowing what he wanted to do in life, to realizing that he could make a living through the internet and today's technology. Now he is helping others do the same with consulting and sharing his previous experiences.   Story:   From being homeless to now creating multiple successful 7 figure sales funnels and paving his own way, today we have our guest Akbar Sheikh.   A few highlights of what you will hear:   Akbar’s journey from where he started. How he graduated college and went through a dark phase. Lived in a small room in the back of a building. How he got into making money online. How he sold his car to start his first online business. Strategies he took to get his first couple of clients. Why you should work atleast a year at a job out of college. How he got into Clickfunnels. How he got his first client. Number one tip for Clickfunnel learners. Do three activities everyday that grow your business. Impactful Quotes from Akbar:   “I was actually living in the back of an office building, like the electrical room.”   “When I saw people doing it online I totally understood it all.”   “I decided that I can’t do this anymore, I couldn’t do retail anymore so I just got up and left.”   “The magic formula: test, tweak, and then scale.”   “I’m just going to make this work, I’m going to give it my all and there's no failure here.”   “I tried several times and I failed.”   “That’s what I would've done -- to give up, but my mindset had changed.”   “I thought, these guys are blind to the world out there and the potential of making money online.”   “The biggest mistake I made out of college was never having a job in my life.”   “Offer your service for free, get results, and then get more clients.” Featured Quotes:   “Live a couple years like nobody else will so you can live the rest of your life like nobody else can.” Connect with Akbar!   Akbar Sheikh   Start now!   Ready to take your business and lifestyle to the next level in college? Grab your seat in our Entrepreneur Accelerator Program: College Edition. Connect with us! Sabah Ali and Dan Tieman. Our Snapchats: @Sabahh14 & @Tieman - Snap us!

Our Guest:   Derreck Stratton is a 31-year-old serial entrepreneur who has spent his life in the construction industry. Derreck has founded and co-founded six construction and demolition companies which have generated millions of dollars worth of revenue. As an Air Force Veteran who served a tour in Iraq, Derreck attributes his success in the construction industry to his strong sense of duty and service to others, alongside a desire to strengthen the American economy by helping those who wish to build it up. Despite his zest for business, Derreck’s greatest love is being a father. Derreck is a proud father of three who will be celebrating his 5-year anniversary to his wife Anna this September. Derreck jokes that being a father is much like being an entrepreneur, as you must be a creative problem solver that has an unusually high tolerance for stress and a low requirement of sleep. Derreck’s most recent business venture includes a Construction Mastermind course that will pave the way for a new generation of business owners in the 1.7 trillion dollar construction industry.   Story:   From starting off in the Air Force to switching gears and founding multiple construction companies generating millions of dollars, today we have our guest Derreck Stratton.   A few highlights of what you will hear:   Derrecks’ journey from where he started. How he got into the construction industry. His journey through the Air Force. The correlation between Air Force and entrepreneurship. How he created and founded a million dollar company. How to find your first client. Scaling your business and finding the right team. His main why in life. Learning how to balance work life and family life. Best advice to a 20 year old.     Impactful Quotes from Derreck:   “A lot of trial and error for about 6 to 7 years.”   “For the past three or four years we have done millions and millions dollars of work.”   “I don’t think entrepreneurship can be necessarily taught, it's just inside of you or it not.”   “People see life as a straight line but it's really like a scribble with an arrow pointing out the side of it.”   “I found a niche in Des Moines and I filled it.”   “From a very young age I knew I was going to go into the military.”   “I was struggling with the little bit amount of money that we made.”   “As a young entrepreneur-- there's no such thing as a work life balance, it's all out 24 hours a day.”   “I’m a doer, I’m a problem solver, I’m a fixer!”   “I went to 6 friends and we bootstrapped the project and everyone pretty much worked for free.”   “Patience is a huge virtue, that even today I still don’t really have.”   “Failure is a key part in the formula to success.”     Featured Quotes:   “There is no elevator to success, you have to take the stairs.” -Zig Ziglar   “Out of everyone you come against, life is going to hit you the hardest.”   “Nine out of ten business fail, so I started ten.”     Connect with Derreck!   Facebook Instagram: @derreckstratton Construction Mastermind Course   Start now!   Ready to take your business and lifestyle to the next level in college? Grab your seat in our Entrepreneur Accelerator Program: College Edition. Connect with us! Sabah Ali and Dan Tieman. Our Snapchats: @Sabahh14 & @Tieman - Snap us!

Story:   Listen to this episode to hear about what Sabah and Dan have learned throughout the 49 episodes that they have created here at Dorm Rooms to Conference Rooms as well as the excitement they have for their 50th episode!   A few highlights of what you will hear:   Sabah and Dan’s learning experiences through podcasting. Being persistence in podcasting/life. How we learned to schedule our podcasts. Success takes time. Why you need to put in time to podcasting. Our special guest that comes on for our 50th episode. Who will it be? Hint…. Their first name is John!     Impactful Quotes:   “We’ve fought through our college classes to really keep this podcast alive.” -Dan   “When you are working on something that you really love to do, time flies so fast.” -Sabah   “On average podcasts only last 7 episodes, to think about we are already made it all the way to 50 is crazy.” -Dan   “They want to make to see success right away and the next day they want to make money, but that doesn't happen that fast.” -Sabah   “Sabah and I have conquered some little battles and major wars at the time.” -Dan   “It may take 1 year, 5 years, 10 years, it will take time to see the success you want to but if you keep working at it you will see it eventually.” -Sabah     Featured Quotes:   “Energy and persistence conquer all things.” -Benjamin Franklin   “Ambition is the path to success, persistence is the vehicle you arrive in.”     Start now!   Ready to take your business and lifestyle to the next level in college? Grab your seat in our Entrepreneur Accelerator Program: College Edition Connect with us! Sabah Ali and Dan Tieman. Our Snapchats: @Sabahh14 & @Tieman - Snap us!

Story:   Social Media influences our generation in ways that we cannot imagine. Whether you use it for personal or business aspects it's a great platform to be on.   Listen to this episode to learn about Sabah and Dan’s thoughts on how social media is valuable in building up your personal brand.   A few highlights of what you will hear:   Why social media is important. The different platforms to utilize. Snapchat Twitter Instagram Facebook Blogging Podcasting How Facebook has 1.71 billion users How to use Snapchat videos for your business. Instagram lives and the importance of using hashtags. How Facebook lives are a great way to promote. How to build your personal brand through social media. Why you should be on Twitter. How to gain more of a following on these platforms. Why you should try blogging and podcasting. How we can help you build up your brand. The easy way to podcast for less than $100. What Smiletime is and why you should use it. Be careful on what you put on social media!   Impactful Quotes:   “It’s a great way for other people to see what it is you do on a daily basis.” -Sabah   “I love posting quotes and shooting out random tweets.” - Dan   “People like visuals rather than text, and that's what Instagram is about.” -Sabah   “I scroll through it and like pictures, but now I post motivation quotes.” -Dan   “Blogging is a great way to put our knowledge that you may just have in your mind.” -Sabah   “I love this, it's been getting me fired up everyday.” -Dan   “Don’t be scared if you’re a bad writer, over time you will get better at it.” -Sabah   “Your voice is plugged into the ears of your listeners, so you can get your message out there.” -Dan   “I love to sit behind my mic and really add value to you guys.” -Dan   “You don’t know who is watching--- they might reach out to you and help you with your goals.” -Sabah   “Facebook live is revolutionizing.” -Dan   “Once its out there, it's out there forever.” -Sabah   “The future is now guys.” -Dan   Featured Quotes:   “Don’t say anything online that you wouldn’t want plastered on a billboard with your face on it.” -Erin Bury   Start now!   Ready to take your business and lifestyle to the next level in college? Grab 1 of only 20 seats in our Entrepreneur Accelerator Program: College Edition- Starts January 30th, 2017. Put in the code “College” to receive a special discount! Connect with us! Sabah Ali and Dan Tieman. Our Snapchats: @Sabahh14 & @Tieman - Snap us!