Podcasts about Streptomyces

As biological technologies continue to advance, many growers are exploring how best to integrate them into their farming operations. Nevada Smith, Head of Marketing North America, and Robert Blundell, Research Plant Pathologist, both with Pro Farm Group, highlight the role of biological pesticides and biofertilizers in sustainable winegrowing. Biological pesticides, derived from microbial sources or natural products such as plants, fungi, bacteria, or nematodes, play a crucial role in pest management by inhibiting or delaying growth or directly causing pest mortality. Understanding which biological products to use and when to apply them within an integrated pest management system is essential for maximizing their effectiveness. Biofertilizers, which enhance plant health and resilience to abiotic stresses, are another key tool for sustainable viticulture. Nevada and Robert discuss the growing importance of these technologies in improving soil health and supporting long-term agricultural productivity. Resources:         REGISTER: 5/9/25 Biochar Field Day 117: Grapevine Mildew Control with UV Light 123: What is Happening in Biologicals for Pest Management and Plant Health 266: Soft Pesticide Trial: Powdery Mildew, Downy Mildew, Botrytis, and Sour Rot Healthy Soils Playlist Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Principles ProFarm What are Biopesticides? Vineyard Team Programs: Juan Nevarez Memorial Scholarship - Donate SIP Certified – Show your care for the people and planet   Sustainable Ag Expo – The premiere winegrowing event of the year Vineyard Team – Become a Member Get More Subscribe wherever you listen so you never miss an episode on the latest science and research with the Sustainable Winegrowing Podcast. Since 1994, Vineyard Team has been your resource for workshops and field demonstrations, research, and events dedicated to the stewardship of our natural resources. Learn more at www.vineyardteam.org.   Transcript [00:00:00] Beth Vukmanic: As biological technologies continue to advance, many growers are exploring how to best integrate them into their farming operations. [00:00:13] Welcome to Sustainable Wine, growing with Vineyard Team, where we bring you the latest in science and research for the wine industry. I'm Beth Vukmanic, executive director. [00:00:23] In today's podcast, Craig McMillan, critical resource Manager at Niner Wine Estates. With Longtime SIP certified Vineyard in the first ever SIP certified winery speaks with Nevada Smith Head of Marketing North America and Robert Blundell research plant pathologist, both with Pro Farm Group. Together, they highlight the role of biological pesticides and bio fertilizers in sustainable wine. Growing [00:00:49] biological pesticides are derived from microbial sources or natural products such as plants, fungi, bacteria, or nematodes. They play a crucial role in pest management by inhibiting or delaying growth or directly causing pest mortality [00:01:04] Understanding which biological products to use and when to apply them within an integrated pest management system is essential for maximizing their effectiveness. [00:01:13] Bio fertilizers, which enhance plant health and resilience to abiotic stresses are another key tool for sustainable viticulture, Nevada and Robert discussed the growing importance of these technologies and improving soil health and supporting long-term agricultural productivity. [00:01:30] If you're gonna be in Paso Robles, California on May 9th, 2025. Join us at Niner Wine Estates for a Biochar Field day. This interactive morning features live demonstrations and expert discussions on the benefits of biochar for soil health and sustainable farming. Learn how to integrate biochar into your farming operations through practical insights and hands-on experiences. Go to vineyard team.org/events or look for the link in the show notes to get registered. [00:02:00] Now let's listen in.   [00:02:05] Craig Macmillan: My guest today are Nevada Smith. He is Head of Marketing North America and Robert Blundell, who's a research plant pathologist, both with Pro Farm Group. Thank you for being on the podcast [00:02:15] Rob Blundell: Thank you, Craig. [00:02:16] Nevada Smith: Thank you. [00:02:18] Craig Macmillan: Today we're gonna be talking about bio pesticides and we might as well start with the the basics. What is a biological pesticide? Robert, why don't you start? [00:02:26] Rob Blundell: Yeah, that's a good question, Craig. And and you know, honestly, it's. So when I first was kind of thinking about this, it's not as simple explanation as you might think. It's a constantly kind of evolving term and depending on who you are asking, you can get a, a very different answer. And it's, it's really kind of this large umbrella term. [00:02:42] . It's kind of a microbially based product or natural product typically derived from a plant, fungi, bacteria, nematode, you know. That pretty much has the ability to inhibit or delay the growth or, you know, cause the death of a pest. [00:02:56] And you know, with the term biological pesticide, pesticide being extremely broad whether it's, you know, insect, fungi, even rodent, you know, rodent sides, things like that. So yeah, again, it's a very broad term and different, different grooves, different commodities are gonna kind of have their own explanation. [00:03:09] Even the EU has a different, I think definition versus the EPA as well. So it's an evolving, evolving term. [00:03:15] Craig Macmillan: What about you, Nevada? Do you have anything to add to that? [00:03:17] Nevada Smith: I'm kind of with Robert, it's almost like sustainability. What does that mean? It means to me, I get to keep farming every year. But I think for everyone else it might have different definitions. And I think basically the, the premise is, is it's biologically based. It's based on a living organism, something that we can repeat, regrow, and, you know, the societal part of it, bio pesticide, it means it's acting or killing or helping mitigate pest. For proform have a biologically based strategy. And so we, that's what we deliver is those type of tools. [00:03:50] Craig Macmillan: One of the major pets on grapes is powdery mildew. Around the globe. Probably the major pest overall, I would say fungal disease. I have been seeing a lot of increase in the use of bio pesticides specifically for powdery mildew, some in organic systems, some in more traditional sustainability oriented systems. [00:04:09] What kind of mechanisms are there out there in the biological world for managing powdery mildew and how does that, how do they work? Nevada, do you wanna start? [00:04:18] Nevada Smith: Yeah, so for biological pesticides, there's sort of different categories and I'll even. Even throwing some sort of organic pesticides as well into this whole mix. I think as a grower or a wine processor, you have a choice and it's like, either I'm going conventional, I'm looking to maximize my value proposition on my vineyard or my process my wines. And so one of the ways we really think about this is how do you integrate bio pesticides into the overall spray for bio mildew, like our winemaker at our place they always say, Hey, if it's more than 3% power mildew it's a no go. It's a bad day for us. And so for us to take the risk on our farm. For a biologicial pesticide, we had to have some data to really get us excited about it. [00:05:02] Overall, we wanna see performance. We need to see at least seven to 10 days. And I think that's maybe the biggest challenge a powerdy mildew issue is depending on what sort of climate and what variety of grapes you're growing is how long does it take me to get across the vineyard? [00:05:17] It's really what it comes down to. [00:05:18] And you know, maybe from a pathology point of view, Robert has some perspective. [00:05:24] Rob Blundell: The way we want to kind of think about powdery mildew is it's, you know, it's, it's always gonna be there. It's gonna be present. And biologicals, when used in the right way, can be a fantastic you know, tool in the arsenal. For, for growers or farmers against a deadly pathogen like this. [00:05:38] Growers really need to kind of consider the goal of using a biological, because there's so many different mechanisms of action of a biological, I mean, it can be live, it can be live, it can be the, you know, the spent fermentation product of a biological, which is gonna work very differently versus an actual liable organism you're gonna put in your field. [00:05:53] So kind of having a clear mindset from the, from the start is gonna be crucial to knowing. What kind of biological do you use? And also importantly, kind of when to use it as well. Because you can have drastically different outcomes based on like the time of your, you know, the time of venue production and then, and then the time of the season as well. [00:06:09] But yes yeah, ultimately there's broad, broad mechanism of actions. So if we're putting something on there live you know, you know, with something like powder mildew, this, pathogen functions because it attaches onto leaves. So we have these overwintering structures called cassia. [00:06:24] So these are basically the dormant structures that are gonna help powerdy mildew, survive. That's why it's been around for so long. That's why it's, it comes back every year. So it basically shuts down, it's fungal mycelium into these dormant hard structures. And then every year it basically reawakens around spring when we get the rainfall. [00:06:39] So we're gonna get ASCO spores. These are specialized spore structures within that kind of dormant structure. They get released out. So, you know, with the, with the weather coming in this week, that's gonna be, huge out there right now. So we're gonna get the release of those spores. [00:06:51] They're gonna land on that leaf. So really that's kind of our prime target of having protection is when they're gonna be landing and then adhesing to that leaf. So with something like a biological, if we can get that onto that leaf and then, you know, that's kind of our line of defense really. We want to be setting like a line of defense early in the season. [00:07:08] Know we have a product regalia. So that gets on there. It has these antimicrobial compounds, which the first point of contact is gonna. Prevent you know, it's gonna help mitigate that interaction between the leaf and the pathogen acts as kind of that medium layer. And then it's also gonna boost the plant's natural defense. [00:07:24] So how powdery mildew you kind of functions it. Once it gets on that leaf, it has a very specialized structure. Call it, they would call it a whole story or an appium, depending on where you are in the world and specialized structure that will kind of get through that cell wall, under that cell membrane and then sucks out the nutrients from the leaf so we can get a biological on the early to boost that plant defense, boost those, you know, defense fight hormone pathways. [00:07:46] We're gonna kind of mitigate that as a an initial point of contact. And then hopefully that's gonna set us off for a you know, a good season after that. But the time, yeah, the timing is definitely crucial. [00:07:55] Nevada Smith: I think to add to Robert's point is really to start your season off right and clean. So that's why as growers or as winemakers, you choose to use some sulfur to kind of mitigate, which is not necessarily a bio pesticide, but it could be organic, you know, depending on what your source of there. But those tools to me, are foundational for getting a clean start if you start bad, and it's gonna be a hell of a year all year long. [00:08:20] And I think that's the biggest challenge of bio pesticide uses overall is. Where do they fit, what growers they fit in? And it's not a solution for all, for sure. I mean, if you're growing Chardonnay or Pinot Noir on the Sonoma Coast in a foggy bank off of Bodega Bay, tough times, you know? But if you're in Pastor Robles, maybe in the Napa Valley in the valley where it's a little bit drier, you go in cab. Issue. You probably can integrate a nice bio pesticide program into it, and I think that's the secret. [00:08:58] Craig Macmillan: You mentioned regalia. What is the actual ingredient in regalia? What does it come from? [00:09:03] Rob Blundell: Yeah, so for Regalia the active ingredient comes from giant knotweed, so Ray Nectria. So that's a giant knotweed extract essentially that's been procured and then optimized in r and d and then applied typically as a folia spray for, for grape vines. [00:09:17] Craig Macmillan: And then the plant reacts to that, and that's what increases the plant defense mechanism. [00:09:22] Rob Blundell: Yeah, yeah, pretty much. There's kind of a few, few tiers of how, you know, Regilia kind of functions. So yeah, so we do that kind of initial application pretty much as soon as you, you have any green tissue, you know, really that's a great time to kind of get that on there. And then so the plant is gonna respond to that so typically a plant, defence pathway. [00:09:39] We have salicylic acid, so that is a key phyto hormones. So phyto hormones are kind of the driving force behind the plant defense. And this is very, you know, this is typical for all kind of pathogens, all kind of crops really. So you're gonna have a pathogen interact and we'll have its initial interaction with a plant. [00:09:55] And then you're gonna get this initial, like, response straight away from a plan. It's gonna be, Hey, I, my defenses are up. I, I sense this as a foreign agent. Basically I need to, you know, protect myself. So you get this upregulation of fighter hormones. They're very regulated. Pathways that then have these cascading effects to ultimately kind of therefore have longer term defense. [00:10:14] So you have an upregulation of fighter hormones. This is gonna signal to the plant that, Hey, I need to strengthen my cell walls, for example. So I'm gonna send more liening cell lignin being a crucial component a cell. wall . That's something we see upregulated as a result of regalia. So we get that increase in phyto hormones, we'll get lignin sent to the cell wall. [00:10:32] We get an increase in antioxidants as well to kinda help break down the pathogen as well. Limiteds effects we get polyphenols various other kind of antimicrobials as a result. So we have kind of direct effects, but then crucially with regalia, so we're gonna have the plant initially respond to its application, and then when the pathogen does. [00:10:50] Come around for a, an attack. That plan already kind of is, is heightened its responses, it's ready for it, so it's gonna be a faster kind of response time and therefore what we kind of consider more of a, a longer term defense response. [00:11:02] Craig Macmillan: Are there other modes of action, perhaps ones that are live? [00:11:05] Nevada Smith: Yeah. And that, I think that's a great point. Is there, you know, the, the bacillus category has been a big category the last dozen years or so. And this could be anything waiting from a bacillus subtles to bacillus Emli. There's other bacilli out there too. And I think they're more of an integrated approach. [00:11:22] So I conventional our farm vineyards. We're gonna just rotate it in there. So just like if you're straight organic or you're straight bio pesticide, it'd be a regalia, as an example, rotated with a bacillus product. We happen to have one as well, a very nice one called Sargus. But there's other great solutions out there in the marketplace today. There's other living organisms as well. There's some products in the Streptomyces categories as well. They're used in grow rotation, but I think to me as a grower and as a winemaker myself. I'm just looking for integration, IPM strategy all the way along. And depend on how, what your guard rails are for farming that would dictate what your options are overall. [00:12:07] Craig Macmillan: So, , to you, Robert, , how do these actually work? Like bacillus subtilis and things? [00:12:11] How do they actually either prevent or treat powdery mildew in grape. [00:12:15] Rob Blundell: Yeah, good question. So for Bacillus with Star in particular so we're actually not looking to treat powdery mildew kind of outright with this product itself. That's more where regalia is gonna come as a benefit. So actually Bacillus is great for something like botrytis in grapes. So, and this is really, really where we can kind of combine regalia and stargus together for a very effective program. [00:12:34] Kind of a one-two punch. So we, you have a live bacillus product. So we have spores that are gonna colonize a surface. So whether that's being the soil, you know, microbia the leaves or the berries, and with botrytis infecting berries causing damage, necrotic lesions in those berries, that's where something like stargus , a bacillus product can be applied to those berries to effectively colonize it. [00:12:55] And again, kind of creating like a nice. Kind of shield essentially from pretty much all fungal pathogens work the same. They have to attach, then they have to penetrate to essentially, hold on. So if we can kind of form a physical, kind of physical barrier, that's gonna be great. So for a lot of the Bacillus products they produce a suite of antimicrobials. [00:13:13] So star for our company we have a suite of antimicrobials that produces, so we have things like Itur, Phin, these are all really good antimicrobials. They're gonna have a direct effect on it. So those spores will be able to, you know, colonize the berry, for example, and then help Yeah. Prevent prevent powerdy mildew So you have this live culture essentially that's on the grapes and it's producing compounds, and that's where the, the antimicrobial comes in or the antifungal comes in. [00:13:40] Nevada Smith: Yes. And. [00:13:47] So there's two registrations from an EPA standpoint. There's the live bacteria count, which people are familiar with from back in the day when there was bts, right cells ths for worm protection. And so we measure the CFUs, which is a colony forming unit. So the bacteria, and there's a minimum threshold that we have for our product as well as anybody else that registers their bacteria. Just sort of a quality control thing for the grower to know this is the level we produce. What we. Seeing the production for our solution is really around the chemical compounds being created in the fermentation process, this lipopeptides cycle. And so that's what's important to know that there's some differentiation. [00:14:25] And I always use the example, I'm a huge basketball fan and you know, there's a difference between Michael Jordan and myself. I'm not at his level. And so not all bacilli are created equal, but they all do have some performance values for them. And obviously, you know, the more you can look into science and whether it be uc, extension and the Gubler Eskalen models and local trial researchers will give you the value proposition each of these products brings to you. [00:14:50] Craig Macmillan: Now, this is something that I, I don't think I've heard before and I wanna make sure that I heard it correctly. So, some of the protection is actually coming from things that are being produced during the fermentation production of the bacteria themselves. And so these are side things. And then that makes it into the final product. [00:15:05] Nevada Smith: Yeah, that's actually the most important thing on foliar. So holistically for bacillus, and this is a very broad brush here unless you're in a tropical environment like bananas in. Columbia or Costa Rica, you're not growing more spores on the leaf surface. You might have that happen a little bit depending on sort of your micro environments. What you really want is coverage and then that eradicates. [00:15:29] The way that the the bacillus really works, it really pokes holes into the cell wall of power mildew. So that's, and it just kinda leaks out and dies. And so it's botrytis , and or powder mildew. That's the major effects that it has on these pest diseases. [00:15:43] But in those rare examples, I'll tell you, we've seen some results of our products being used in crops and tropical environments. If it can grow, it's creating more value. Now let's talk about something different. You put bacillus. Sargus into the ground in a soil treatment. It has tremendous effects on colonizing around the roots. [00:16:01] And so that's where bacillus is actually known in its natural environment into the soil profile. So that's where we really see that the one two value. Now, that's not what we're using it for in grapes. Grapes, is for foliar control of. And mild diseases. But we have many other crops that we use bacillus for like corn, for root management and prolification around the diseases down there. [00:16:27] Craig Macmillan: Do you have anything to add to that, Robert?  [00:16:29] Rob Blundell: Yeah, so that's, yeah, excellent points from Nevada. So yeah, kind, kind of getting, talking about how we can use bacillus, you know, actually to go into the soil. So something like nematodes, you know, that's, that's a huge issue in grapes always has been. It's where we have, you know, root stocks engineered over the years to have, you know, nematode resistant root stocks. [00:16:43] Again, not, not kind of the primary purpose of what we'd be looking to use stargus, and vineyards, but again, having a soil colonizer is fantastic. You know, a lot of the. The majority of diseases, especially in like the row crops, they're coming from the below ground. You know, you've got the pythium and lettuce. [00:16:57] You've got like sclero, things like that, huge kind of soil-borne pathogens. So again, having something that you can add to the soil, you know, the soil already has its own fantastic suite of, naturally present. You know, bacteria, fungi, that's, you know, like Nevada said, that's what we got ab baus from, stargus from. [00:17:12] So we're just kind of adding to that to kind of help boost the fight. And we can always kind of think of the interaction between pathogens and plants as kind of this arms race. There's a ways, you know, the pathogen kind of gets ahead by evolving slightly, and then you have the ho response from the plant and then the, the microbiome as well. [00:17:27] So we're just trying to kind of tip the scales and our balance is how a good way to kind of think of biologicals as well. And I think as you were mentioning, kind of the, the fermentation process, and that's where we get our microbials from. [00:17:37] Every microbe has primary metabolites. That's what's key to basically the survival of a microbe. But then we have secondary metabolites, and these are very highly specialized products that get produced. For bacillus, during that fermentation process, this is a, you know, these are unique metabolites. You know, metabolites are produced by the majority of. Micros, but the in particular can produce these like fantastic suite of very unique metabolites. So that's where the, a non-life product kind of comes into itself as well. By us able to understand what are those metabolites we're producing same fermentation, can we optimize those? And then do we, do we even need a live product as a result of that? [00:18:12] Craig Macmillan: Um, it sounds like this could have a really dramatic impact or role in fungicide resistance management. I. What is that role? Or are we talking about going over completely to biological for a program or are we including in a rotation with other materials? What about organic growing where we have a, a little smaller suite of things that we can use? [00:18:35] Nevada Smith: , I'll start with that if you don't mind. [00:18:36] I think it's a great question and where I see it fitting is most synthetic pesticides for disease control are really affecting the mitochondria on the inside of the dupo. And where I see it fitting is the sort of one, two, I would say contact plus systemic. That's an a de-risk, your resistance management issues. But B, increase the likelihood that those products work better and longer. [00:19:02] So today we position a product like Sargus other bacillus products in the marketplace to be in combination with a. SDHI chemistry, like Luna would be an example of that, or Pristine. We would see those integrated in the cycle of sprays, which is, it's very similar to why you use sulfur with those products as well. [00:19:23] But I think, you know, as a winemaker, I want less sulfur my crop as possible, but obviously I want, as a farmer too, I want it to be clean as can be. So it's kind of this yin and yang overall. [00:19:33] But for resistance management, I think you have to really think about the whole approach. And once again, back guardrails. Of what your restrictions are for you as a farmer and maybe the winemaker working together with them. How do you really get to the. And, you know, I, it's kind of a joke too, but we talked about earlier the word sustainability be very broad. Stroke. Well, I'm wanna farm into the future years. I wanna have that vineyard for a hundred years and not to replant it. So I'm really trying to keep as clean as possible all the time, especially for the over wintering stuff. And so to me early often protection, control contact plus systemic is the approach that we take at our farm as well. [00:20:10] Craig Macmillan: When we say earlier, are we talking bud break, two inches, four leaves?   [00:20:15] Nevada Smith: For powder. Yeah. But then we could debate, you know, on these opsis issues and can cane issues. [00:20:24] Craig Macmillan: When would I wanna put on a bacillus? [00:20:27] Nevada Smith: I would start with a sulfur spray about bud break here, and then kind of rotate back into the bloom time for the first bloom spray, about 50% bloom, more or less. I kind of time it too, and if it's a little later, I'm okay with that. That would be the major time where I get the first shots on and that we, I would start with regalia, for example, just because it's a different mode of action. And then I'd come back with the bacillus here about seven to 10 days later. [00:20:51] Craig Macmillan: And would you then include synthetic materials as well, I'm assuming. [00:20:55] Nevada Smith: Yeah, on our farm we would typically our biggest issue is getting across the, the vineyard. And so we're looking to start off with a synthetic material first, just so we can get a nice, well, sulfur first, sorry. That probably like A-S-D-H-I chemistry. And then I'd start to think about how can I integrate my approaches to, being softer chemistry based through the rest of the season. [00:21:17] Craig Macmillan: Does that make sense to you, Robert? [00:21:19] Rob Blundell: Yes. And actually I'm just gonna jump back a little bit in our conversation. I just add a few more details kind of on this approach as well. So yeah, a little bit earlier, I kinda mentioned this arms race between the pathogen and the host and, you know, the available treatments that we have and really kind of a huge benefit of. Adding a biological, say, into your conventional program or just introducing more biologicals in general for your, your fungicides is you know, as, as Nata was saying, you know, a lot of the conventional chemistry is targeted in that mitochondria. It's a very specialized kind of function. It's there, it does a great job when it works well, but then. [00:21:51] We get pathogen resistance, obviously. So there's kind of two types of resistance. You get qualitative resistance and quantitative. So qualitative is when there is a kind of sudden or abrupt loss in the ability of say, a fungicide to work. And then you have quantitative where it's kind of more of a gradual decline in effectiveness. [00:22:08] And then you get kind of these varying levels of fungicide sensitivity versus that qualitative where you're having either resistant or a sensitive is isolate. And this. It's great. We're talking about grapes and powerdy mildew, 'cause this is one of like, this is like the classic textbook example. We kind of get taught in pathology about this because powerdy mildew, it has these really quick cycling times, produces a number of generations per season, very easily dispersed. [00:22:28] So this is such a high risk kind of category for this fungicide resistance. So again, if we have just a whole range of availabilities in terms of different fungicide options, you know, chemistry, soft chemistry, biologicals various other options, we're just kind of increasing our chances of really. Just well, and one not having any pathogen resistance. [00:22:49] Because again, as soon as you have that, then you have you, you really lose your options for your chemistries. So again, just, you know, introducing a few biologicals here and there, especially for, you know, grapes on the West coast, which is the amount of sprays we're having to do in other states where you have less sprays, you can kind of get away with kind of not considering your approach a little bit more. [00:23:05] You don't have to kind of. Do your frack checks as much because maybe you're only doing one or two sprays. But here we have to be very, very concerned with our, you know, what products we're using and then at what timing they're using. So again, just having a biological to really kind of take the pressure off some of those chemistries is a, is a huge a huge, valuable source of preserving the life of your chemistry. [00:23:23] And then have, like Nevada said, you know, having sustainable wines for the years to come. [00:23:28] Craig Macmillan: Actually, that made me think of something. Is there a risk of resistance being developed to biological strategies? [00:23:38] Rob Blundell: Yeah, that's, that's a really good question. So yes. [00:23:41] It's kind of a newer question. Yeah. So again, with a lot of these chemistries being very, very site specific function, all you have to do is have a very small mutation in your, say, powerdy mildew, to overcome that. And typically with biologicals, the typically, I say typically the mode of action is a little bit more broad. [00:23:57] So very rarely are you gonna have an extremely like. , so like a lot of the chemistries buy into certain receptors that their job that do that really well. Biologicals don't tend to do that as much. They're more of a broad spectrum. That's why we see a, like for our fungicides, we see a range of control against a lot of different, you know, powerd mildew, we've got ascomiscies,, Presidio, my seeds, they pretty much do well across a range because they are more broad spectrum. [00:24:19] Not to say that in time we're gonna start to see a decline. It's, you know, again, it's kind of really how we consider using them. And we. Whether we wanna like, fully rely on them or hey, that's, let's, let's use more of a, a combined approach. So again, we just really make that sustainable as well. [00:24:33] So kind of to answer your question definitely it comes with risk but kind of inherently due to the more broad spectrum nature of biologicals, we're not too worried about the kind of resistance that we've seen developed as a result of c chemistries in that very, very specific function of a chemistry. [00:24:48] Craig Macmillan: That makes a lot of sense. I know that you had mentioned you're farming in a more traditional fashion, Nevada, but your products, and obviously I know some folks in the organic area. What role do biologicals play in an organic fungicide program? Nevada? [00:25:03] Nevada Smith: I think it's definitely at the core of your foundation of seeing how you are gonna approach powerdy, mildew and botrytus. Is it a typical, you know, seven spray system, which I'd say it's kind of typical for the northern coast markets or the coastal range. Or if you're in the valley floor are you more in that three to five applications for bio pesticides and, and what timing and how you're approaching those things are critical overall to assessing those on the organic. [00:25:30] You don't have to be just organic. You could be, from a theoretical point of view, you can just choose to be this type of farmer, which is, I want to choose softer chemistries. And I think that's the mixed bag that we deal with with customers, a crop and the crop advisors out there. [00:25:44] Rob Blundell: Yeah, and I was gonna say just to kinda add to that as well. So again, regardless whether you're doing organic or chemistry or biologicals, you know. Really key as well. Foundation is just having good cultural control as well. Something we haven't really touched on today, but again, you can really increase the effectiveness of your biological, your chemistry based on what you're doing in, in the vineyard. [00:26:02] So, you know, things like, you know, canopy thinning, so if you're using say, a biological, you wanna try to colonize those berries, you wanna kind of thin out that kind of piece. You're getting a better spray coverage. You're also gonna, you know, reduce the humidity and that kind of pee of things like mildew you know, effective pruning in dry conditions. [00:26:18] Navar was kind of talking about opsis, some of those canker pathogens. So those grapevine trunk diseases, that is still the most effective way to control a grapevine trunk disease is just to prune under the right conditions. 'cause you need that wound, that pruning wound to heal when it's, you're not gonna get a, let's see, you know, we got that ring coming in this week. [00:26:33] So, grapevine trunk disease is dormant on those on the, on the parts of the vine. They're gonna be airborne. So you need to make sure there's a very good dry window. So again, like cultural practice is always, always key to whatever approach or biologicals or chemicals. [00:26:46] Nevada Smith: I think the add to that, one of the biggest things I remember, I wanna say it's like in 2010, I saw Gubler trials, Gubler, uc, Davis, you know, famous for everything. And he had the trial and all he did was pull leaves. On the bunch closures, and I was like, wow, that looked amazing. And I said, what? What spray did you have on there? [00:27:02] And they're like, nothing. We just pulled leaves and just literally that airflow coming across there, drying out, I assume it was just drying out the spores was amazing. I was like, wow. But then I started doing the cost analysis as a grower. I'm like, I can't send a crew there and pull leaves all the time. So, [00:27:19] Craig Macmillan: Yeah, it's true. I mean, and that's why it's a mix of things. I think. It's integrated pest management. You, you know, you do want to get some airflow through there. You will probably do some canopy management, whether you do shoot thinning or leaf removal. Some of that also helps with coverage. [00:27:32] Right. So using a mix of cultural and chemical or pesticide techniques is probably, probably wise. I'm not a pest control advisor, so I probably shouldn't say that. I. But I think I, you, they're not the first folks that have, have reminded me of that. And sometimes I know that, I think we kind of forget. [00:27:49] I wanna change topics a little bit. There's a, I don't wanna say new, but new to me. Area bio fertilizers a totally different kind of strategy for plant nutrition Nevada. What is a bio fertilizer? What, how do they work? What is it and how does it work? [00:28:05] Nevada Smith: So bio fertilizers can be a multitude of things, but once again, back to bio based on living organisms prior living organisms. We happen to have one that we're just launching this year into the grape industry called Illustra. It's based on this unique technology, UBP. Universal biological platform. I'm not trying to be a billboard ad here, but the reason why I'm bringing it up is it, it's really is a platform, which is interesting about it because it's, it's a technology that we can change and manipulate depending on how we go through the production cycle. And so we're creating tools that are more made for abiotic stresses. [00:28:39] And so we're trying to deal with different stresses that. Crop can deal with. And so right now the core market that we've been using these products , for is like soybeans and corn. [00:28:49] But as we think about the permanent crop markets of grapes, tree nuts, citrus, it's a little bit different as far as cycle and how you approach it. And so what we've seen through the data, these bio fertilizers is really trying to mitigate abiotic stresses. So what we're really mitigating is one, like you, you think about herbicide applications. You kind do a banded application near the tree trunk into about a third of the spray row. That herbicide usually hits that tree trunk. [00:29:14] There is a cause and effect on the grapevine itself. What if you could put a tool down that was sprayed on the same time to mitigate that stress or de-stress it from even how much time and pressure it's having? So. Our product is really one of those tools today that's really focused on mitigating biotic stresses. [00:29:30] Other things I can think about as a farmer is like salinity in the soil. The roots are pushing. You have water issues in California. We all talk about that. How do you mitigate the plant that still maximize the yield? So. Choosing the bio fertilizer today that's really focused on that, not just being a typical, you know, can 17 or un 30 twos based nitrogen based products. [00:29:51] This is something else to bring into the marketplace. They're kind of more niche based, depending on what you're dealing with. But there there's several out there. There's, seaweed extracts would be a big one, right? That people use a lot around farms. There's humic, andic acids, organic acids in general. So those are the kind of the buckets of items today that farmers are choosing for bio fertilizers. [00:30:14] Rob Blundell: Hmm. Yeah. And I can yeah, touch a little bit more on the, on the UBP illustrate product as well in terms of kind of how, how that really functions. And as Navar said, it's, you know, helping bounce back after, say, some herbicide damage, promoting that early season boost in biomass. [00:30:27] So, you know, a product like this, this UBP will basically kind of. Inducing cell division. So in you know, increasing mitochondrial activity, more cell division essentially leads to more chlorophyll, more photosynthesis graded by a mass production. And it's actually done by acidifying the cell wall. So we acidify a cell wall. You get more what we have these, there's proton pumps on these cell wall. [00:30:48] We're basically pumping in more protons, increasing the rate of that cell division. So we're basically yeah, boosting that in ocean season biomass. Therefore having that. You know, quicker resilience to say, you know, abiotic stresses like no said, whether it's salinity, salt, drought, water, things like that. [00:31:02] So yeah, numerous, numerous benefits of some of these fertilizers. [00:31:07] Craig Macmillan: Which actually talking about antibiotic stress, that it reminds me of something. I want to apply it to this, but I also want to go back. If you're using a live material, a bacillus or something, or if you have a, a bio fertilizer that may is are there living things in bio fertilizers. [00:31:22] Nevada Smith: There can be, [00:31:24] uh [00:31:24] Craig Macmillan: be. Okay. [00:31:25] Nevada Smith: We don't have anything in ours today, but I think there are, let's call the word impregnated Fertilizers. With living organisms. It could be trico, dermas, it could be other things, bacillus. And those are good, good tools to use. [00:31:39] The hard part is like, you know, now we start to open the can of worms around like compost tea, like what's in there. And I think that's the biggest challenge that growers, those things do work as a whole. But then you start to run into the quality assurance, quality control. And I think that's where companies invest in the bio pesticide industry are really trying to. Tell the story and not just be perceived as snake oils and saying, Hey, replicated work we measure to this level, like CFU content and here's what we expect results to be consistently. [00:32:08] And this is sort of the shelf life issues and we're kind of getting as a, you know, the world evolves. I think there's just this environmental things that people choose to do. And I think, you know, everything works. Just a question of how you integrate it into your own farming systems. [00:32:24] Craig Macmillan: So speaking of environmental factors and antibiotic stress one thing that's occurred to me is that if I have something that's that's out there, either that's living or maybe maybe a fragile compound, how do things like drought and heat affect these materials in the field? [00:32:38] Rob Blundell: Yeah. Yeah, very good question. I think historically that was always kind of. What people thought of the negative of biologicals were like, well, is only gonna work under certain conditions. You know, where, where have you tested it? So yeah, it's, it's a good question as well. [00:32:50] It's , case by case dependent you know, certain extremes and temperatures, various conditions as well are gonna have effects on, you know, the, the longevity of that. But we, you know, we try to test it under. There a variety of conditions. And then for particularly something you know, with our fungicides as well for, for the grape industry, you know, these new be tested on a variety of key varietals as well. [00:33:10] You know, it's, Hey, it might work for Chardonnay but not for Sauvignon Blanc. So that's important to evaluate as well, rather than just bring a product to market that like you, it's only gonna work on very certain aspects of a, of the single industry. [00:33:22] Craig Macmillan: So heat as an example, , you have a fair amount of confidence that I can apply something in the, in the heat if I have a hot, dry condition in the summer that it's not going to. Break down those materials that are there from the fermentation or kill the live organism. We, we think there's a fair amount of resilience here. [00:33:39] Rob Blundell: Yeah, again, definitely gonna be dependent on the, the type of microbe and the type of metabolite that it's producing. But you know, microbes in nature are exposed to these extreme conditions just naturally anyway, you know, so we have epi amplified slipping on the surface of products. So on the surface of. [00:33:54] Structures. So like a grapevine, like a leaf. They're obviously out there and exposed to the elements every single day. And then the soil is a, is a chaotic environment. There's a lot going on in the soil. So microbes are just, you know, extremely resilient in nature themselves. So there's gonna be a, again it's gonna vary depending on, you know, the microbe and, and the product we're using. [00:34:12] But there's good efficacy. [00:34:16] Craig Macmillan: What's the future? What is the future looking like for biological products, living or extra? [00:34:23] Nevada Smith: for the marketing hat on myself, not the farmer side. [00:34:27] It, I think everything's coming down to specialized sprays. And if I had to vision what the features look like to me, it's gonna be about. Seeing robots down the vineyard. They have 18 different things and their little mechanisms and there's, they're just, they're analogizing what's going on in that grape cluster itself. [00:34:44] They're spot spraying three or four things and they're going down the next level. That to me, is where we're gonna get down to the future, where the grapes themselves will naturally grow less chemicals to be used overall. [00:34:54] but if you need to go through and really take care of a problem, you're gonna go through and take care of a problem. And I think that's where it's become very exciting to me. You're gonna put less of a prophylactic spray across all systems, and you're kind of really create some microenvironments where you think that Vine number seven got sprayed a lot. Vine number 21 has not been sprayed all season. Wonder why? Let's go check it out. Let's understand and investigate. [00:35:18] The other big thing I think in grapes that's really interesting from exploratory research and development side for our company is like viruses. Viruses have not been addressed and it's becoming an issue. It's something I want to kind of explore and put on our docket of, you know, assessment stuff and how we can take new technologies to really improve virus transmissions. How do you mitigate once you have a virus? And it still produce that vine for another 10 plus years. So it gets quality and quantity out of it. Those are the kind of things interesting to me. [00:35:50] Craig Macmillan: Robert. [00:35:51] Rob Blundell: Yeah, definitely. Yeah, really good point, Sarah as well. And yeah, viruses in particular is, is something we see about in the grapevine industry. And yeah, often biological companies we're focused on, you know, the, the fungal issues, the bacteria, the, the nematodes. So that's, that's a huge area that really needs some more dedication. [00:36:06] So there's gonna be some great technologies available for that in the future. Yeah, I think to speak to no Nevada's points on kind of the future of it, I think like a really kind of custom tailored approach is gonna be available for those that want it. Particularly from the pathology side of my interest. [00:36:19] I think precision monitoring and detection of disease is just, I. Advancing leaps and bounds. So again, like, you know, going out there and doing scouting, hopefully people are gonna have a lot better tools available, available to 'em in the near future to really kind of understand crucial times in their season where disease is coming in. [00:36:36] And then again, like I. Just having better tools to kind of really actually di inform us of the pathogen as well that's present rather than just again, a lot of, a lot of diseases is hard to pinpoint to an exact pathogen. We're lucky in grapes, powerdy, mildew, and, botrytis are very obvious. We know what those are, we think are some of the row crops. [00:36:52] It could be a whole host of things. We've got nematodes, we've got various sore pathogens that we can't actually see. So I think yeah, improving disease diagnosis and detection, having these precision tools is gonna be a huge part of the future where biologicals can integrate themselves in as well. [00:37:07] Craig Macmillan: That sounds pretty exciting. I wanna thank you both for being on the program. This has been a really great conversation. My guests today we're Nevada Smith. He is the head of Marketing North America and Robert Blande, who's a research plant pathologist, both with Pro Farm Group. Thanks for being on the podcast. [00:37:22] Nevada Smith: Appreciate you. [00:37:23] Rob Blundell: Thank you very much, Craig. It was a pleasure. [00:37:25] Craig Macmillan: And to our listeners, thank you for listening to Sustainable Wine Growing Vineyard team. [00:37:29] Nevada Smith: Craig, one more thing. We gotta just drink more wine.  [00:37:40] Beth Vukmanic: Thank you for listening. [00:37:41] Today's podcast was brought to you by Vineyard Industry Products serving the needs of growers since 1979. Vineyard industry products believes that integrity is vital to building long-term customer, employee, and vendor relationships. And they work hard to provide quality products at the best prices they can find. Vineyard industry products gives back investing in both the community and the industry. [00:38:06] Make sure you check out the show notes for links to Pro Farm, an article titled, what are Bio Pesticides Plus Related Sustainable Wine Growing Podcast episodes. 117 Grapevine Mildew Control with UV Light 123. What's happening in biologicals for pest management and plant health? 266 Soft pesticide trial for powdery mildew, downy mildew, botrytis and sour rot, and a healthy soils playlist. [00:38:34] If you'd like the show, do us a big favor by sharing it with a friend, subscribing and leaving us a review. You can find all of the podcasts on vineyard team.org/podcast, and you can reach us at podcast@vineyardteam.org. Until next time, this is Sustainable Wine Growing with the Vineyard team.   Nearly perfect transcription by Descript

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Generative ML in chemistry is bottlenecked by synthesis, published by Abhishaike Mahajan on September 18, 2024 on LessWrong. Introduction Every single time I design a protein - using ML or otherwise - I am confident that it is capable of being manufactured. I simply reach out to Twist Biosciences, have them create a plasmid that encodes for the amino acids that make up my proteins, push that plasmid into a cell, and the cell will pump out the protein I created. Maybe the cell cannot efficiently create the protein. Maybe the protein sucks. Maybe it will fold in weird ways, isn't thermostable, or has some other undesirable characteristic. But the way the protein is created is simple, close-ended, cheap, and almost always possible to do. The same is not true of the rest of chemistry. For now, let's focus purely on small molecules, but this thesis applies even more-so across all of chemistry. Of the 1060 small molecules that are theorized to exist, most are likely extremely challenging to create. Cellular machinery to create arbitrary small molecules doesn't exist like it does for proteins, which are limited by the 20 amino-acid alphabet. While it is fully within the grasp of a team to create millions of de novo proteins, the same is not true for de novo molecules in general (de novo means 'designed from scratch'). Each chemical, for the most part, must go through its custom design process. Because of this gap in 'ability-to-scale' for all of non-protein chemistry, generative models in chemistry are fundamentally bottlenecked by synthesis. This essay will discuss this more in-depth, starting from the ground up of the basics behind small molecules, why synthesis is hard, how the 'hardness' applies to ML, and two potential fixes. As is usually the case in my Argument posts, I'll also offer a steelman to this whole essay. To be clear, this essay will not present a fundamentally new idea. If anything, it's such an obvious point that I'd imagine nothing I'll write here will be new or interesting to people in the field. But I still think it's worth sketching out the argument for those who aren't familiar with it. What is a small molecule anyway? Typically organic compounds with a molecular weight under 900 daltons. While proteins are simply long chains composed of one-of-20 amino acids, small molecules display a higher degree of complexity. Unlike amino acids, which are limited to carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen, small molecules incorporate a much wider range of elements from across the periodic table. Fluorine, phosphorus, bromine, iodine, boron, chlorine, and sulfur have all found their way into FDA-approved drugs. This elemental variety gives small molecules more chemical flexibility but also makes their design and synthesis more complex. Again, while proteins benefit from a universal 'protein synthesizer' in the form of a ribosome, there is no such parallel amongst small molecules! People are certainly trying to make one, but there seems to be little progress. So, how is synthesis done in practice? For now, every atom, bond, and element of a small molecule must be carefully orchestrated through a grossly complicated, trial-and-error reaction process which often has dozens of separate steps. The whole process usually also requires non-chemical parameters, such as adjusting the pH, temperature, and pressure of the surrounding medium in which the intermediate steps are done. And, finally, the process must also be efficient; the synthesis processes must not only achieve the final desired end-product, but must also do so in a way that minimizes cost, time, and required sources. How hard is that to do? Historically, very hard. Consider erythromycin A, a common antibiotic. Erythromycin was isolated in 1949, a natural metabolic byproduct of Streptomyces erythreus, a soil mi...

On this all-bacteriophage episode, TWiV explains the ‘vampire phage', and and how mammalian cells internalize phage particles and utilize them to enhance cell growth and survival. Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Dickson Despommier, Alan Dove, Rich Condit, and Jolene Ramsey Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS, email Become a patron of TWiV! Links for this episode MicrobeTV Discord Server MicrobeTV store at Cafepress Global Scholar Travel Awards (ASV) Research assistant position in Rosenfeld Lab CBER/FDA (pdf) The New City by Dickson Despommier Gerd Sutter passes (LMU) Avian influenza A (H5N1) Cambodia (WHO) CWD expands in Montana (CIDRAP) National Wastewater Surveillance System (CDC) Vampire phage paper (ISME J) UMBC phage hunters (UBMC) Vampire viruses prey on other viruses (Conversation) Phage internalized by mammalian cells (PLoS Biol) Phage uptake by mammalian cells (iScience) Phage-mammalian cell interactions (Ann Rev Virol) Timestamps by Jolene. Thanks! Weekly Picks Dickson – Biden skips climate summit (NY Times) Rich – Lilium electric VTOL jet Alan – The Far Land, by Brandon Presser Jolene – Bacteriophage T4 infection watercolor painting by David Goodsell Vincent – Using narratives and storytelling to communicate science with nonexpert audiences Listener Picks Darach – It depends t-shirt Intro music is by Ronald Jenkees Send your virology questions and comments to twiv@microbe.tv

This episode: A probiotic strain of E. coli can target and destroy pathogens that survive a treatment of antibiotics! Download Episode (8.2 MB, 12 minutes) Show notes: Microbe of the episode: Streptomyces griseoruber   Takeaways Antibiotic resistance is becoming more and more of a problem as bacterial pathogens develop resistance to more and more drugs. For some people who develop an infection that is resistant to everything, it's as if they were living back in the days before antibiotics were discovered, when all they could do was pray for survival. New antibiotics are needed, but even more needed are new ways of approaching treatment of infections, using innovative approaches and combinations of therapeutics. In this study, a probiotic strain of Escherichia coli was used to target potentially pathogenic E. coli bacteria that can survive treatment with a particularly effective type of antibiotic, fluoroquinolones. This probiotic strain, called Nissle, delivers toxins directly to the survivors, preventing resistant pathogens from proliferating.   Journal Paper: Hare PJ, Englander HE, Mok WWK. 2022. Probiotic Escherichia coli Nissle 1917 inhibits bacterial persisters that survive fluoroquinolone treatment. J Appl Microbiol 132:4020–4032.   Email questions or comments to bacteriofiles at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening! Subscribe: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Android, or RSS. Support the show at Patreon, or check out the show at Twitter or Facebook.

This episode: Certain phages in the gut are linked with increases in performance on some cognitive tests! Download Episode (7.5 MB, 10.9 minutes) Show notes: Microbe of the episode: Streptomyces bikiniensis News item Takeaways Our gut microbiota includes a large number of viruses, mostly bacteriophages. These fall into two groups, the lytic kind that infects and reproduces itself immediately in a host, and the lysogenic kind that can integrate its genome into the host bacterial genome and remain dormant for long periods. In this study, a higher proportion of lysogenic phages was correlated with increased performance on cognitive tests in multiple species. In humans, men showed a small increase in some tests and women in others. In mice and fruit flies, transplant or ingestion of phages was linked to increased memory performance.   Journal Paper: Mayneris-Perxachs J, Castells-Nobau A, Arnoriaga-Rodríguez M, Garre-Olmo J, Puig J, Ramos R, Martínez-Hernández F, Burokas A, Coll C, Moreno-Navarrete JM, Zapata-Tona C, Pedraza S, Pérez-Brocal V, Ramió-Torrentà L, Ricart W, Moya A, Martínez-García M, Maldonado R, Fernández-Real J-M. 2022. Caudovirales bacteriophages are associated with improved executive function and memory in flies, mice, and humans. Cell Host Microbe 30:340-356.e8. Email questions or comments to bacteriofiles at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening! Subscribe: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Android, or RSS. Support the show at Patreon, or check out the show at Twitter or Facebook.

In this week's episode of "Pushing the Limits" I interview the incredible Dr Ross Pelton AKA the Natural Pharmacist. Ross Pelton is a pharmacist, nutritionist, author and a health educator who is widely recognized as the world's leading authority on drug-induced nutrient depletions. He was named one of the top 50 most influential pharmacists in the United States by American Druggist magazine for his work in Natural Medicine. He is the author of 13 books including his latest one which we do a deep dive into today on Rapamycin and longevity science  About the Book and what you will learn about in this episode (Disclaimer: none of this is medical advice, it is for educational purposes only)  Rapamycin, mTOR, Autophagy and Treating mTOR Syndrome We discuss how the prescription drug rapamycin can increase longevity. After the discovery of rapamycin, scientists began conducting experiments in an effort to understand rapamycin's mechanism of action. This led to the discovery of mTOR, which in turn, led to the understanding of how mTOR and autophagy regulate cellular metabolism and ultimately, the health and life of all living things. The discovery of rapamycin resulted in scientific studies that have enabled scientists to gain a totally new understanding of the aging process and how we might use this new information. The topics in this book are collectively one of the most important breakthroughs in the science of life extension that has ever been discovered. Discovery of Rapamycin: Strain of bacteria named Streptomyces hygroscopicus Discovered from a soil sample taken from Easter Island Exhibited anti-proliferative properties   The bacterium was discovered from a soil sample taken during a scientific expedition to Easter Island in 1964. The purpose of that expedition was to search for new compounds that might express antifungal and/or antibiotic properties. Rapamycin expressed strong antifungal activity. However, efforts to develop rapamycin as an antifungal drug were discontinued when it was discovered to have potent immunosuppressive activity. Rapamycin also exhibited anti-proliferative properties, which prompted scientists to send samples of rapamycin to the National Cancer Institute (NCI). Tests conducted there revealed two remarkable findings. The first revelation was that rapamycin suppressed the growth in a variety of solid tumors. Rapamycin's Mechanism of Action Over the past 25 years, research into rapamycin's mechanism of action has resulted in the discovery of a new understanding of cellular biology and the aging process. This research has revealed that two mechanisms named mTOR and autophagy, which are found inside every cell, are critical regulators of cellular metabolism. Breakthrough: Rapamycin's Use in Humans A groundbreaking study titled mTOR inhibition improves immune function in the elderly was published that ushered in the era of rapamycin use in humans. The study was conducted by Joan Mannick, MD, who was a senior scientist at Novartis. In addition to being a human clinical trial, Mannick's study is important because it sheds light on WHY and HOW rapamycin can be used safely and effectively in humans to slow down the onset of age-related diseases and increase lifespan and healthspan. We also discuss drug induced nutrient depletions. You can find Dr Ross at:  https://www.naturalpharmacist.net/ Also check out the Anti-aging range of supplements and information at https://theantiaging.store You can get Dr Peltons book here:   If you are wanting to Lactobacillus Fermenteum ME-3 from Dr Ohhira you can now get this in our shop here:   For the professional grade Probiotic from Dr Ohhira that is fermented for 5 years, also mentioned in this podcast you can get that here:   Health Optimisation and Life Coaching with Lisa Tamati Lisa offers solution focused coaching sessions to help you find the right answers to your challenges. Topics Lisa can help with:  Lisa is a Genetics Practitioner, Health Optimisation Coach, High Performance and Mindset Coach. She is a qualified Ph360 Epigenetics coach and a clinician with The DNA Company and has done years of research into brain rehabilitation, neurodegenerative diseases and biohacking. She has extensive knowledge on such therapies as hyperbaric oxygen,  intravenous vitamin C, sports performance, functional genomics, Thyroid, Hormones, Cancer and much more. Testing Options Comprehensive Thyroid testing DUTCH Hormone testing Adrenal Testing Organic Acid Testing Microbiome Testing Cell Blueprint Testing Epigenetics Testing DNA testing Basic Blood Test analysis She can help you navigate the confusing world of health and medicine and can advocate for you. She can also advise on the latest research and where to get help if mainstream medicine hasn't got the answers you are searching for whether you are facing challenges from cancer to gut issues, from depression and anxiety, weight loss issues, from head injuries to burn out.: Consult with Lisa    Join our Patron program and support the show Pushing the Limits' has been free to air for over 8 years. Providing leading edge information to anyone who needs it. But we need help on our mission.  Please join our patron community and get exclusive member benefits (more to roll out later this year) and support this educational platform for the price of a coffee or two You can join by going to  Lisa's Patron Community   Lisa's Anti-Aging and Longevity Supplements  Lisa has spent years curating a very specialised range of exclusive longevity, health optimising supplements from leading scientists, researchers and companies all around the world.  This is an unprecedented collection. The stuff Lisa wanted for her mum but couldn't get in NZ. Check out the range at her LongLifeLabs shop   Subscribe to our popular Youtube channel  with over 600 videos, millions of views, a number of full length documentaries, and much more. You don't want to miss out on all the great content on our Lisa's youtube channel. Youtube   Order Lisa's Books My latest book Relentless chronicles the inspiring journey of how my mother and I defied the odds after an aneurysm left my mum, Isobel, with massive brain damage at age 74. The medical professionals told me there was absolutely no hope of any quality of life again. Still, I used every mindset tool, years of research and incredible tenacity to prove them wrong and bring my mother back to full health within three years. Get your copy here: Lisa's Books   Our NMN Bio Flagship Longevity Range A range by molecular biologist Dr Elena Seranova NMN: Nicotinamide Mononucleotide, an NAD+ precursor Researchers have found that Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide or NAD+, a master regulator of metabolism and a molecule essential for the functionality of all human cells, decreases dramatically over time.   What is NMN? NMN Bio offers a cutting edge Vitamin B3 derivative named NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) that can boost the levels of NAD+ in muscle tissue and liver. Take charge of your energy levels, focus, metabolism and overall health so you can live a happy, fulfilling life. Founded by scientists, NMN Bio offers supplements of the highest purity and rigorously tested by an independent, third-party lab. Start your cellular rejuvenation journey today.   Support Your Healthy Aging We offer powerful third-party tested NAD+ boosting supplements so you can start your healthy ageing journey today. Shop now: NMNBIO NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 250mg | 30 capsules NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 500mg | 30 capsules 6 Bottles | NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 250mg | 30 Capsules 6 Bottles | NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 500mg | 30 Capsules Boost Your NAD+ Levels — Healthy Ageing: Redefined Cellular Health Energy & Focus Bone Density Skin Elasticity DNA Repair Cardiovascular Health Brain Health Metabolic Health Listen to the episodes with Dr Seranova on the show: https://www.lisatamati.com/podcast--dr-elena-seranova/ https://www.lisatamati.com/podcast--dr-elena-seranova-part-3/   Perfect Amino Supplement by Dr David Minkoff Introducing PerfectAmino PerfectAmino is an amino acid supplement that is 99% utilised by the body to make protein. PerfectAmino is 3-6x the protein of other sources with almost no calories. 100% vegan and non-GMO. The coated PerfectAmino tablets are a slightly different shape and have a natural, non-GMO, certified organic vegan coating on them so they will glide down your throat easily. Fully absorbed within 20-30 minutes! No other form of protein comes close to PerfectAminos Listen to the episode with Dr MInkoff here:  Ketone Products by HVMN The world's best  exogenous Ketone IQ Listen to the episode with Dr Latt Mansor Lisa's  ‘Fierce' Sports Jewellery Collection For Lisa's gorgeous and inspiring sports jewellery collection, 'Fierce', go to Jewellery   For Vielight Device Vielight brain photobiomodulation devices combine electrical engineering and neuroscience. To find out more about photobiomodulation, current studies underway and already completed and for the devices mentioned in this video go to www.vielight.com Use code "tamati" at checkout to get a 10% discount on any of their devices.   Enjoyed This Podcast? If you did, subscribe and share it with your friends! 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Teresa Matoso Victor, cientista angolana e professora sénior de engenharia química no Instituto Superior Politécnico de Tecnologias e Ciências (ISPTEC) de Luanda, ganhou destaque no mundo da pesquisa científica. No ano passado, foi vencedora do Prémio Internacional de Melhor Pesquisa Química e desenvolvimento de Antibióticos, graças à pesquisa de “produção e avaliação de dois antibióticos sob fermentação em estado sólido, utilizando uma cultura micro-porosa”. Contando com um sólido currículo que evidenciam a sua experiência no ramo, a cientista angolana Teresa Matoso Victor, vem ganhando cada vez mais destaque na área da investigação científica. Desde muito jovem vive fora do país, tendo se mudado para Cuba em 1984 aos 13 anos, onde completou uma boa parte do seu percurso educativo, demonstrando uma grande preferência e aptidão pela química, matemática, física e biologia. Posteriormente, licenciou-se em Engenharia Química pela Universidade de Northumbria, concluiu o mestrado em Engenharia Química Sustentável e o doutorado em Engenharia Química pela Universidade de Newcastle, no Reino Unido.Desde o seu regresso a Angola, em 2019, tem participado de diversos projectos e também trabalha no Instituto Superior Politécnico de Tecnologias e Ciências (ISPTEC) de Luanda, onde lecciona as disciplinas de Introdução a Engenharia Química, Cálculo de Reactores e Engenharia de Processos. Em 2022 teve o seu trabalho reconhecido ao ser galardoada com o Prémio Internacional de Melhor Investigadora em Engenharia Química e Biotecnologia, pela Sociedade Internacional para as Redes Científicas e pelo Congresso Internacional para a Ciência e Tecnologia, na qualidade de melhor pesquisa química e desenvolvimento de antibióticos.Em entrevista à RFI, a cientista e investigadora angolana conta que este prémio foi o reconhecimento de um conjunto de trabalhos de mais de duas décadas, que começou pela descoberta deste material microporoso, que não para por aqui: Teresa espera ver as farmacêuticas adoptarem a sua técnica.Este prémio na verdade significa um conjunto de trabalhos de mais de duas décadas que fui fazendo. Este prémio significa que o trabalho que eu fiz durante o meu doutoramento começou primeiro pela descoberta do material microporoso, um material inerte, um material com alta hierarquia estruturada de poros. Todas as propriedades tornaram este material versátil e candidato a várias aplicações. Então este prémio significa o reconhecimento de todo esse trabalho árduo que fui fazendo e especificamente na produção de antibióticos, é só uma das aplicações deste material microporoso. Neste caso o material foi utilizado como um micro-bioreactor para a produção de antibióticos, e trouxe uma aceleração na produção de antibióticos e é uma das estratégias que gostaríamos nós de ver as farmacêuticas adoptarem porque acelera a produção de metabolismo secundário no geral e não só de antibióticos.Então este prémio veio mais ou menos consolidar todo esse trabalho árduo que eu fui fazendo. Aliás este material já foi patenteado, teve duas patentes internacionais, então este prémio veio mais uma vez mostrar que o que eu fui fazendo ao todo em mais de duas décadas é um trabalho que tem um significado científico muito elevadoDurante o seu doutoramento começou um projecto de pesquisa e desenvolvimento na intensificação da produção de antibióticos, que culminou na descoberta de um material microporoso, inerte e com uma alta hierarquia estruturada de poros, resultando na criação de duas patentes, como indica a sua biografia: uma primeira em que o material tem múltiplas aplicações, nomeadamente na saúde e na “separação de partículas em caso de derrame de petróleo bruto”, mas também a “mitigação dos seus efeitos no meio ambiente”, além de poder ser utilizada na “imobilização de microorganismos para a produção de antibióticos, proteínas, enzimas”, entre outras; uma segunda patente direccionada ao sector da “agricultura e no melhoramento qualitativo de solos, rios e lagos poluídos”.Pergunta: Como se deu todo este percurso, e estima que houve algum reconhecimento por parte do Estado angolano?Teresa Victor: Sim. Podemos dizer que depois que eu recebi este prémio, que veio depois das patentes, porque eu tive todo o meu tempo a viver na Inglaterra, mesmo depois de ter terminado o doutoramento. Fiquei dez anos a trabalhar na Universidade de Newcastle, primeiro como pesquisadora associada por cinco anos e posteriormente comecei a trabalhar numa multinacional, a Nutriss, que tratava de explorar as propriedades intelectuais da universidade e usando também este material, que é o mesmo material como já disse anteriormente, é versátil, mas a Nutriss alia este material para a agricultura. Teresa Matoso estima que o Estado angolano reconhece o seu trabalho, algo que é evidenciado pelas múltiplas bolsas de estudo que pôde beneficiar, mas também a oportunidade de se reunir com o executivo.Sendo assim, e eu vendo a situação de Angola que é um país altamente agrícola e que já se começou a falar de diversificação económica desde 2017, então eu decidi também trazer este material, esta tecnologia inovadora para Angola. Quando chego a Angola, depois de uns meses deparamos nos com o COVID.Pergunta: E o COVID de certa forma impactou a aplicação desta inovação?Teresa Victor: Sim porque eu que consegui fazer uma apresentação. Este material, como já pude explicar, é um material inerte, um material com uma alta hierarquia estruturada de poros, então eu cheguei à conclusão que se este material consegue adsorver altas quantidades de líquido e adsorver grandes quantidades de partículas, então este material pode ser utilizado como corpo hospedeiro para podermos capturar os vírus, e nesse caso, estudarmos a genética dos vírus. Mas como era uma temática nova, principalmente do COVID, que era um vírus novo que se tinha pouco conhecimento acerca, mas fui dando opiniões no como nós podemos lidar com este vírus. E posteriormente decidi fazer um artigo científico que é parte da minha tese, que neste caso o artigo era produção e avaliação de dois antibióticos de Streptomyces coelicolor A3 (2) que neste caso é a bactéria que sintetiza dois antibióticos, e esses dois antibióticos que são a prodigiosina e actinorodina. Nós tivemos a chance de trabalhar com alguns microorganismos para podermos ver a inibição destes antibióticos a estes microorganismos. Parecendo que não este trabalho teve um grande impacto na comunidade internacional, foi daí que me foi concedido o prémio internacional de melhor pesquisadora em engenharia química e biotecnologia.Depois disso o governo angolano reconheceu-me. Aliás, recentemente, dia quatro de Abril, fui condecorada pela sua excelência o Presidente da República, o presidente João Gonçalves Manuel Lourenço e foi dando todo este apoio por parte do nosso executivo. Penso eu que em termos de apoio do executivo não me tem faltado, só preciso de formar uma equipa forte e multidisciplinar para que possamos pôr em prática essa tecnologia inovadora.Entretanto a investigadora teve a oportunidade de se encontrar com a vice-presidente da República ,a professora doutora Esperança da Costa, com quem teve a oportunidade de conversar na vertente da investigação científica. Não obstante, quando questionada sobre o estado da profissão em Angola e se existem condições para assegurar a evolução da área, por forma a ajudar o país a colmatar os seus problemas, a cientista angolana afirma que somente haverá espaço para a progressão se houver uma mudança na mentalidade dos angolanos, nomeadamente pela sociedade e os demais pares de profissão.Eu estimo que as condições vamos ter de preparar, pois, ainda temos muitos desafios. Muitas das vezes o desafio nem é parte do executivo, é mesmo parte nossa pois temos de mudar a mentalidade das pessoas, nomeadamente o desacredito sistemático que as pessoas fazem na capacidade dos seus próximos semelhantes, a dificuldade em reconhecer o nível de outrem, a desvalorização de tudo o que é endógeno. Então eu acho que temos de trabalhar com a mentalidade e acreditar que nos também podemos. Por exemplo, quando se fala de cientista as pessoas dizem que um “cientista angolano/a não existe. Então temos de trabalhar com a mentalidade antes de pensarmos em apoiosEu acredito que há talento em Angola. Neste momento estando eu a leccionar no ISPTEC consegui perceber que existem vários talentos aqui, mas o que eu percebi é que precisamos de trabalhar com a mentalidade dos angolanos, pois se nós próprios não acreditamos nas nossas capacidades ninguém vai acreditar.Voltando à questão dos antibióticos. O mundo acaba de passar por um período complicado devido à pandemia. Especialistas do mundo inteiro estimam que a COVID-19 seria apenas uma de muitas pandemias que se produziriam nos anos vindouros, perspectivando um incremento na frequência, mas também na velocidade de contágio e do grau de resistência das mesmas.Pergunta: como estima que será a evolução dos vírus nos próximos anos? Existe alguma forma eficaz de combatê-la?Teresa Victor: Nós sabemos que os vírus estarão sempre em mutações até porque os vírus mutam muito mais facilmente que uma bactéria, então os vírus estando constantemente em mutações, nós também temos de ser rápidos em estudar a MAI, o vírus originador do próximo vírus. Por isso é que há uma necessidade em juntarmos equipes multidisciplinares para que não nos apanhem desprevenidos. Olhando bem para a minha área que é a produção de antibióticos, nós sabemos que há bactérias que estão a ser resistentes aos antibióticos, então por isso é que há uma necessidade em continuar-se a fazer descobertas porque a última vez que se descobriu um antibiótico foi em 1987. Então temos de dar mais atenção à investigação científica, e quando se fala em investigação científica tem de se dar mais atenção em trabalhar em equipes multidisciplinares para que nós possamos resolver essas situações, porque os vírus antes de encontrarem um corpo hospedeiro, são simplesmente partículas. Então se nós juntarmos uma equipe multidisciplinar, alguém que entenda como funciona uma partícula, alguém que entende como funcionam os vírus quando vão para um corpo hospedeiro, nós vamos poder dar melhor a resposta. É por isso é que eu naquela altura quando vi os vírus, e vi que: se os vírus antes de encontrarem um corpo hospedeiro são simplesmente uma partícula, então nós temos de encontrar um corpo hospedeiro onde podemos capturar esse vírus e poder retirar o seu material genético e fazer os estudos. Mas depois vamos ter de continuar a fazer o estudo das mutações porque eles mutam facilmente. É a lei da natureza.Quando à questão dos antibióticos, vemos que o continente africano é, em parte – mas não o único, um dos mais afectados por doenças que podem ser mitigadas por certos antibióticos. Nota-se que na maioria das vezes, muitos países dependem de “lotes” internacionais provenientes de donativos para conseguir prover estes medicamentos à população.Pergunta: estima que é possível produzir e comercializar antibióticos a nível local por forma a reduzir esta dependência?É possível, é possível. Porque nós temos que ver a matéria-prima da produção de antibióticos. Por exemplo, quando comecei a fazer esse trabalho, comecei pelo fato que a maior fonte de produção de antibióticos é no solo. Então se a maior produção de antibióticos é no solo aí pensei: vou fazer uma mímica do solo. Por isso é que este material microporoso é uma mímica do solo do ambiente natural me que os antibióticos vivem. Então nós podemos fazer isso em qualquer parte. É só termos os equipamentos necessários. Quer dizer, se tivermos em facto a descobrir um novo antibiótico nós precisamos de equipamentos mais sofisticados para poder detectar e verificar de que antibiótico se trata, como a HPLC (High Performance Liquid Chromatography). Mas se nós tivermos simplesmente que produzir e fazer a reprodução, não precisamos porque se já soubermos que o antibiótico é o antibiótico tal, então podemos produzir em qualquer parte do mundo. Isto é um problema global, e o problema que é que dos poucos antibióticos que existem, a maioria das bactérias estão a ser resistentes.Este testemunho retrata a realidade do âmbito da pesquisa científica não somente em Angola, mas em muitos países do mundo. Por sua vez, Teresa Matoso Victor, espera continuar a trilhar os seus passos nesta profissão, sem nunca esquecer de apelar ao reconhecimento por parte da sociedade, mas também da indústria farmacêutica.

Link to bioRxiv paper: http://biorxiv.org/cgi/content/short/2023.07.22.550126v1?rss=1 Authors: Pan, S., Li, X., Pan, C., Li, J., Fan, S., Zhang, L., Du, K., Du, Z., Zhang, J., Huang, H., Li, J., Zhang, H., Huang, J., Qin, Z. Abstract: Plants and their associated microbes live in complicated, changeable, and unpredictable environments. They usually interact with each other in many ways by proceeding in multidimensional, multi-scale and multi-level coupling manners, leading to challenges of the co-existence of randomness and determinism, or continuity and discreteness. Gaining a deeper understanding of these diverse interaction mechanisms can facilitate the development of new data mining theories and methods for complex systems, new coupled modelling for the system with different spatiotemporal scales and functional properties, or even universal theory of information and information interactions. In this study, we use a close-loop model to present a plant-microbe interaction system and describe the probable functions from the microbial natural products. Specifically, we report a rhizosphere species, Streptomyces ginsengnesis G7, which produces polyketide lydicamycins and other active metabolites. Interestingly, these distinct molecules have the potential to function both as antibiotics and herbicides for crop protection. Detailed laboratory experiments combined with comprehensive bioinformatics analysis allow us to rationalise a model for this specific plant-microbe interaction process. Our work reveals the benefits of exploring otherwise neglectable resources for the identification of novel functional molecules and provides a good reference to better understand the system biology in the complex ecosystems. Copy rights belong to original authors. Visit the link for more info Podcast created by Paper Player, LLC

Link to bioRxiv paper: http://biorxiv.org/cgi/content/short/2023.03.29.534690v1?rss=1 Authors: Islam, A., Chen, X.-C., Weng, C.-W., Chen, C.-Y., Wang, C.-W., Chen, M.-K., Tikhomirov, A. S., Shchekotikhin, A. E., Chueh, P. J. Abstract: The antibiotic heliomycin (resistomycin), which is generated from Streptomyces resistomycificus, has multiple activities, including anticancer effects. Heliomycin was first described in the 1960s, but its clinical applications have been hindered by extremely low solubility. A series of 4-aminomethyl derivatives of heliomycin were synthesized to increase water solubility; studies showed that they had anti-proliferative effects, but the drug targets remained unknown. In this study, we conducted cellular thermal shift assays and molecular docking simulations to identify and validate the intracellular targets of heliomycin and its water-soluble derivative, 4-(dimethylaminomethyl)heliomycin (designated compound 4-dmH), in p53-functional SAS and p53-mutated HSC-3 oral cancer cells. Consistent with our in silico studies, our cellular thermal shift assays (CETSA) revealed that, in addition to SIRT1, the water-soluble 4-dmH preferentially targeted a tumor-associated NADH oxidase called tNOX or ENOX2. The direct binding of 4-dmH to tNOX inhibited the activity of tNOX and enhanced its ubiquitin-proteasomal protein degradation in both SAS and HSC-3 cells. Moreover, the inhibition of tNOX by 4-dmH decreased the oxidation of NADH to NAD+ which diminished NAD+-dependent SIRT1 deacetylase activity, ultimately inducing apoptosis and significant cytotoxicity in both cell types. We also observed that tNOX and SIRT1 were both upregulated in tumor tissues of oral cancer patients compared to adjacent normal tissues, suggesting their clinical relevance. Finally, the better therapeutic efficacy of 4-dmH was confirmed in tumor-bearing mice, which showed greater tNOX and SIRT1 downregulation and tumor volume reduction when treated with 4-dmH compared to heliomycin. Taken together, our in vitro and in vivo findings suggest that the multifaceted properties of water-soluble 4-dmH enable it to offer superior antitumor value compared to parental heliomycin, and indicated that it functions through targeting the tNOX-NAD+-SIRT1 axis to induce apoptosis in oral cancer cells. Copy rights belong to original authors. Visit the link for more info Podcast created by Paper Player, LLC

TWiM explains the synthesis in bacteria of new energy-dense biofuels that can replace rocket and jet fuels, and the use of nanopore sequencing to improve diagnosis and treatment of patients with serious infections.   Become a patron of TWiM.   Links for this episode: Biosynthesis of high energy biofuels (Joule) Polyketide synthases in bacteria (PNAS) Sequencing for diagnosis of serious infections (mBio) Nanopore sequencing video (YouTube) Emerging human pathogen Kodamaea ohmeri (Front. Micro) Music used on TWiM is composed and performed by Ronald Jenkees and used with permission. Send your microbiology questions and comments to twim@microbe.tv

TWiM explores the activation of natural product synthesis using CRISPR interference in Streptomyces, and how light/dark and temperature cycling modulate Electron Flow in Pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilms. Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Michele Swanson, and Petra Levin Become a patron of TWiM. Links for this episode Activating natural product synthesis (Nucleic Acids Res) Light and temperature modulate biofilm electron flow (mBio) Take the TWiM Listener survey! Send your microbiology questions and comments (email or recorded audio) to twim@microbe.tv

The words bacteria and beauty are not usually associated. But some bacteria make beautiful colors that span the entire rainbow. And one type of bacteria called Streptomyces coelicolor makes an antibiotic with a lovely blue pigment. This blue-colored antibiotic, called actinorhodin, inspired microbiologist Dr. Vineetha Zacharia, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Berkeley studying this soil bacterium, to use it like watercolor paint to create art. So, read on or listen to the podcast episode to learn about her work with Streptomyces coelicolor and how she got into what she calls “Actino Art.”Topics covered in this episode:Streptomyces coelicolor, a colorful bacteriumLife cycle and cell typesAntibiotics and other helpful chemicals Streptomyces producePainting with antibioticsAt-home microbiology activity: Actino ArtJOYFUL MICROBE SHOW NOTES: https://joyfulmicrobe.com/bacteria-paint-vineetha/JOYFUL MICROBE TWITTER: https://twitter.com/joyfulmicrobe/JOYFUL MICROBE INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/justineldees/SUPPORT JOYFUL MICROBE: https://ko-fi.com/joyfulmicrobe/

This episode: Harmless gut microbes resist cholera with good defense or better offense! Download Episode (5.8 MB, 8.4 minutes) Show notes: Microbe of the episode: Streptomyces corchorusii   News item   Takeaways The community of microbes in our guts is highly diverse, yet generally they all coexist relatively peacefully. Some pathogens can invade this community and cause massive disruptions. Cholera is a disease caused by a pathogen that injects its competing bacteria with toxins and disrupts the health of the gut, leading to very watery diarrhea that can quickly dehydrate victims.   This study found that some microbes commonly found harmlessly existing in the gut can resist destruction by the cholera pathogen. One of these resists by striking back with its own toxin injection system; the other creates a barrier of slime around itself that keeps the invader's toxins from reaching it. Such resistant gut microbes could help to reduce the threat of diseases such as cholera.   Journal Paper: Flaugnatti N, Isaac S, Lemos Rocha LF, Stutzmann S, Rendueles O, Stoudmann C, Vesel N, Garcia-Garcera M, Buffet A, Sana TG, Rocha EPC, Blokesch M. 2021. Human commensal gut Proteobacteria withstand type VI secretion attacks through immunity protein-independent mechanisms. Nat Commun 12:5751. Other interesting stories: Producing super-strong fibers with engineered microbes Some gut bacteria store some drugs inside their cells   Email questions or comments to bacteriofiles at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening! Subscribe: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Android, or RSS. Support the show at Patreon, or check out the show at Twitter or Facebook.

This episode: Transplanting microbes from some corals to others could help the corals survive high temperatures! Download Episode (5.7 MB, 8.3 minutes) Show notes: Microbe of the episode: Streptomyces olivaceoviridis   News item   Takeaways The ever-rising temperatures of our modern world are putting more and more stress on various ecosystems. This is true even on the ocean floor: record-high temperatures damage reefs by causing coral bleaching, in which corals lose their photosynthetic endosymbionts. If conditions do not improve, these corals eventually die.   Corals have microbial symbionts other than the phototrophs, also. We know from ourselves and from plants that microbes can have big effects on their hosts, so it seemed worth testing whether symbionts from more heat-resistant corals could transfer heat resistance to more vulnerable individuals. Recipients of this treatment did show enhanced heat resistance, but the microbial community composition did not always change after the treatment.   Journal Paper: Doering T, Wall M, Putchim L, Rattanawongwan T, Schroeder R, Hentschel U, Roik A. 2021. Towards enhancing coral heat tolerance: a “microbiome transplantation” treatment using inoculations of homogenized coral tissues. Microbiome 9:102. Other interesting stories: Tiny bacterium kills larger bacterium that makes troublesome foam   Email questions or comments to bacteriofiles at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening! Subscribe: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Android, or RSS. Support the show at Patreon, or check out the show at Twitter or Facebook.

We talk about microbes on this podcast. But let's face it. If you don't see a picture of them, it's difficult to imagine what's going on in the microbial world. That's why microscopy is so helpful. It allows us to actually see the invisible communities of bacteria, fungi, algae, viruses, archaea, and protozoa.But sometimes, art does a better job of representing the microbial world and all of its intricacies and nuances. So that's what my guest on the podcast, Dr. Lizah van der Aart, does. They create microbiology art as a professional science artist and illustrator, helping others express difficult concepts that need descriptive visuals. Another thing I love that Lizah does is create microbiology art that anyone can purchase from their online shops, things like enamel pins of bacteria that we talk about in the episode, tote bags, stickers, and coffee mugs. These different products they sell allow us to outwardly express our love, passion, and enthusiasm for microbes.If you've ever wanted to meet a science artist, here's your chance. We discuss Lizah's background as a PhD microbiologist and how they decided to combine their passion for microbiology with art to create a career. Lizah works with different clients on science illustration projects, and I've actually had the pleasure of working with them on a project of my own. So, we discuss the process of working together to turn my idea of what I thought would be the best Winogradsky column color guide into a real thing. It ended up looking amazing and is a truly beautiful representation of the colorful patterns you might see in your column. Ya gotta see it.In this episode, you will learn about…How bioluminescent bacteria drew Lizah to microbiologyWhat makes the soil bacteria Streptomyces so delightful?An example of the difficulties in categorizing bacteria: ThermoactinomycetesDeciding to start a science illustration businessHow Lizah helps us visualize complex microbiology conceptsHow many bacterial cells can fit in a tote bag?Our collaboration on the Joyful Winogradsky Column GuideMicrobes in our daily lives: the outliers in the microbial worldAt-home microbiology activity: creating microbial shapesJOYFUL MICROBE SHOW NOTES: https://joyfulmicrobe.com/science-art-lizah/JOYFUL MICROBE TWITTER: https://twitter.com/joyfulmicrobe/JOYFUL MICROBE INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/justineldees/JOYFUL WINOGRADSKY COLUMN GUIDE: https://joyfulmicrobe.com/joyfulwinogradskycolumn/

This episode: A virus of archaea stops cells from dividing, so they just keep getting bigger and releasing more viruses! Download Episode (6.9 MB, 10.1 minutes) Show notes: Microbe of the episode: Streptomyces caelestis   Takeaways Viruses affect their hosts many different ways: instant hostile takeover of cellular machinery, lurking unseen in the genome for generations, inducing reduced cell division or excessive cell division, and more. Archaeal viruses are relatively unknown in their genetic abilities and lifestyles, but we do know that they tend not to destroy their hosts through explosive viral reproduction, and that some archaea have eukaryote-like cell cycle phases.   In this study, some viruses infecting a thermophilic archaeon interrupt its cycle in the growth phase, so hosts expand in size up to around 17 times normal, continuously releasing new viruses over time. Eventually some archaea in the population gain resistance to the viruses via their CRISPR/Cas systems, and normal-sized cells dominate the population again.   Journal Paper: Liu J, Cvirkaite-Krupovic V, Baquero DP, Yang Y, Zhang Q, Shen Y, Krupovic M. 2021. Virus-induced cell gigantism and asymmetric cell division in archaea. Proc Natl Acad Sci 118:e2022578118. Other interesting stories: Chocolate is a fermented food   Email questions or comments to bacteriofiles at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening! Subscribe: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Android, or RSS. Support the show at Patreon, or check out the show at Twitter or Facebook.

This episode: Spores of some bacteria latch onto the tails of other bacteria and ride along as they move around in the soil! Download Episode (5.5 MB, 8.0 minutes) Show notes: Microbe of the episode: Bohle iridovirus   News item   Takeaways The soil is a complex environment, and microbes that live in soil need complex lifestyles to thrive. There are many examples of cooperation, competition, and other adaptations to highly varied situations.   In this study, bacteria that grow like filamentous fungi don't have the mechanisms to move autonomously, but their spores can hitch rides on other kinds of bacteria that swarm through the soil using their propeller-like tails called flagella to push themselves toward the plant roots they prefer to grow near.   Journal Paper: Muok AR, Claessen D, Briegel A. 2021. Microbial hitchhiking: how Streptomyces spores are transported by motile soil bacteria. ISME J. Other interesting stories: "How microbes in permafrost could trigger a massive carbon bomb"   Email questions or comments to bacteriofiles at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening! Subscribe: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Android, or RSS. Support the show at Patreon, or check out the show at Twitter or Facebook.

Hoje vamos falar de um problema que tem infernizado a vida dos cariocas. Parece que está virando rotina, chega o verão aqui no Rio de Janeiro, começam os problemas com a água. É isso aí, vamos falar tudo sobre a Geosmina com base no artigo publicado na Nature Microbiology "A geosmina e o 2-metilisoborneol voláteis regulados pelo desenvolvimento atraem um artrópode do solo para bactérias Streptomyces, promovendo a dispersão de esporos." Vamos lá?! Aperte o play e aproveite. Você pode ouvir os episódios do Microbiando através do Orelo, iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcast, TuneIn e outros aplicativos de podcasts. Quer citar esse episódio na sua pesquisa ou trabalho acadêmico? De acordo com a ABNT NBR 6023, cite assim: MICROBIANDO: Geosmina: o (mau) cheiro da nossa água. [Locução de]: Adriana Cabanelas, Leandro Lobo e Rosana Ferreira. [S. l.]: A Ciência Explica, 17 de abril, 2021. Podcast. Disponível em: . Acesso em: (data). Episódio citados: Salvem os Corais! - Microbiando Está chovendo vírus e bactérias! – Microbiando

JOSE ANTONIO NIETO especialista en marketing olfativo nos descubre el aroma a lluvia. El peculiar olor de la tierra después de la lluvia lo produce sobre todo una bacteria conocida como Streptomyces coelicolor mediante una sustancia llamada geosmina, cuyo nombre significa precisamente aroma de la tierra, aunque algunas otras cianobacterias también la producen. Tanto la Streptomyces coelicolor como la geosmina son inofensivas para los seres humanos, aunque la bacteria usa este olor para atraer animales, fundamentalmente mamíferos, a los que usa como vehículos para su dispersión cuando se acercan a beber a sitios en los que hay más agua atraídos por el olor de la geosmina. Esto es Vino para Camaleones, una idea original de Ferran Pacheco para que te lo pases bien aprendiendo. Escucha el episodio completo en la app de iVoox, o descubre todo el catálogo de iVoox Originals

This episode: Actinomycete bacteria are often helpful to insects, but some can be deadly yet still attractive! Download Episode (5.7 MB, 8.3 minutes) Show notes: Microbe of the episode: Streptomyces corchorusii   News item Takeaways Actinomycete bacteria do a lot of interesting things. They grow like fungi, with mycelia and spores, and produce many interesting compounds, including antibiotics and other useful pharmaceuticals. They often team up with insects, producing such compounds to assist them in competing with other organisms or resisting disease.   But such amazingly helpful powers of chemistry can also be amazingly harmful. In this study, multiple strains of these bacteria were able to kill fruit fly larvae that ingested their spores. The toxin the bacteria produced was a chemical that interferes with cells' DNA-protein interactions. The bacteria also produced an odor that, in certain concentrations, lured the larvae to their doom. Journal Paper: Ho LK, Daniel-Ivad M, Jeedigunta SP, Li J, Iliadi KG, Boulianne GL, Hurd TR, Smibert CA, Nodwell JR. 2020. Chemical entrapment and killing of insects by bacteria. Nat Commun 11:4608. Other interesting stories: Eukaryotes borrowed viperin genes for proteins that prokaryotes use to fight viruses (paper) Bacteria can break down plastic even faster with newly discovered enzyme Also news, Feedspot ranked BacterioFiles in the top 5 virology podcasts! Check out the list for other good shows about viruses.   Email questions or comments to bacteriofiles at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening! Subscribe: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Android, or RSS. Support the show at Patreon, or check out the show at Twitter or Facebook.

In this episode of TWiM, the hidden biochemical diversity in soil-dwelling Actinobacteria that could lead to a second Golden Era of antibiotic discovery, and structures of glideosome components reveals the mechanism of gliding in apicomplexan parasites. Become a patron of TWiM. Links for this episode: Cryptic or silent? (mBio) The Streptomyces chromosome (Ann Rev Gen) Engineering Nature’s Medicines (pdf) Apicomplexan glideosome (Comm Biol) Music used on TWiM is composed and performed by Ronald Jenkees and used with permission. Send your microbiology questions and comments to twim@microbe.tv

Link to bioRxiv paper: http://biorxiv.org/cgi/content/short/2020.10.13.337097v1?rss=1 Authors: Baral, A., Gorkhali, R., Basnet, A., Koirala, S., Bhattarai, H. K. Abstract: L-Asparaginase II (asnB), a periplasmic protein, commercially extracted from E. coli and Erwinia, is often used to treat Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. L-Asparaginase is an enzyme that converts L-asparagine to aspartic acid and ammonia. Cancer cells are dependent on asparagine from other sources for growth and when these cells are deprived of asparagine by the action of the enzyme the cancer cells selectively die. Questions remain as to whether asnB from E. coli and Erwinia is the best asparaginase as they have many side-effects. asnB with the lowest Michaelis constant (Km) (most potent), and with the lowest immunogenicity is considered the most optimal enzyme. In this paper asnB sequence of E. coli was used to search for homologous proteins in different bacterial and archaeal phyla and a maximum likelihood phylogenetic tree was constructed. The sequences that are most distant from E. coli and Erwinia were considered best candidates in terms of immunogenicity and were chosen for further processing. The structures of these proteins were built by homology modeling and asparagine was docked with these proteins to calculate the binding energy. asnBs from Streptomyces griseus, Streptomyces venezuelae and Streptomyces collinus were found to have the highest binding energy i.e. -5.3 kcal/mol, -5.2 kcal/mol, and -5.3 kcal/mol respectively (Higher than the E.coli and Erwinia asnBs) and were predicted to have the lowest Kms as we found that there is an inverse relationship between binding energy and Km. Besides predicting the most optimal asparaginase, this technique can also be used to predict the most optimal enzymes where the substrate is known and the structure of one of the homologs is solved. Copy rights belong to original authors. Visit the link for more info

Link to bioRxiv paper: http://biorxiv.org/cgi/content/short/2020.10.11.335315v1?rss=1 Authors: Kudo, Y., Awakawa, T., Du, Y.-L., Jordan, P. A., Creamer, K. E., Jensen, P. R., Linington, R. G., Ryan, K. S., Moore, B. S. Abstract: Bacterial hormones, such as the iconic gamma-butyrolactone A-factor, are essential signaling molecules that regulate diverse physiological processes, including specialized metabolism. These low molecular weight compounds are common in Streptomyces species and display species-specific structural differences. Recently, unusual gamma-butyrolactone natural products called salinipostins were isolated from the marine actinomycete genus Salinispora based on their anti-malarial properties. As the salinipostins possess a rare phosphotriester motif of unknown biosynthetic origin, we set out to explore its construction by the widely conserved 9-gene spt operon in Salinispora species. We show through a series of in vivo and in vitro studies that the spt gene cluster dually encodes the saliniphostins and newly identified A-factor-like gamma-butyrolactones (Sal-GBLs). Remarkably, homologous biosynthetic gene clusters are widely distributed amongst many actinomycete genera, including Streptomyces, suggesting the significance of this operon in bacteria. Copy rights belong to original authors. Visit the link for more info

Link to bioRxiv paper: http://biorxiv.org/cgi/content/short/2020.08.21.260521v1?rss=1 Authors: Qiu, Y., Liu, J., Li, Y., Xue, Y., WANG, H., Liu, W. Abstract: 2-Aminovinyl-cysteine (AviCys) is an unusual thioether amino acid shared by a variety of ribosomally synthesized and posttranslationally modified peptides (RiPPs), as part of a macrocyclic ring system that contains the C-terminal 4 or 6 residues of a precursor peptide. This amino acid is nonproteinogenic and arises from processing the C-terminal Cys residue and an internal Ser/Thr residue to form an unsaturated thioether linkage. Enzyme activities for forming lanthionine (Lan), a distinct saturated thioether residue characteristic of lanthipeptide-related RiPPs, has long been speculated to be necessary for AviCys formation. Based on investigations into the biosynthesis of thioviridamide non-lanthipeptdes in Streptomyces sp. NRRL S-87, we here report an alternative path for AviCys formation that is independent of known Lan synthetase activity. This path relies on four dedicated enzymes for posttranslational modifications of the precursor peptide, in which TvaES-87, a phosphotransferase homolog, plays a critical role. It works with LanD-like flavoprotein TvaFS-87 to form a minimum AviCys synthetase complex that follows the combined activity of TvaCDS-87 for Thr dehydration and catalyzes Cys oxidative decarboxylation and subsequent Michael addition of the resulting enethiol nucleophile onto the newly formed dehydrobutyrine residue for cyclization. With TvaES-87, TvaFS-87 activity for Cys processing can be coordinated with TvaCDS-87 activity for minimizing competitive or unexpected spontaneous reactions and forming AviCys effectively. Copy rights belong to original authors. Visit the link for more info

This episode: Bacteria in soil produce smells to attract arthropods that eat them but also spread their spores! Download Episode (6.2 MB, 9.0 minutes) Show notes: Microbe of the episode: Blotched snakehead virus   News item Takeaways Soil, especially after a rain, often has a characteristic "earthy" smell. This soil smell is actually the result of certain bacteria producing a volatile chemical called geosmin. Many geosmin producers are in the Streptomyces genus, which produces a large variety of interesting chemicals, but geosmin is one of the few that is nearly universal in the genus.   This study found that insect-like arthropods called springtails are attracted to geosmin. These animals usually feed on fungi, but they will also eat bacteria when available. Despite this result, the bacteria continue to produce the chemical, which is linked to their sporulation cycle. The study found that springtails carry intact bacterial spores to new places stuck to the insides and outsides of the animal, and this enhances the dispersal ability of the bacteria. Journal Paper: Becher PG, Verschut V, Bibb MJ, Bush MJ, Molnár BP, Barane E, Al-Bassam MM, Chandra G, Song L, Challis GL, Buttner MJ, Flärdh K. 2020. Developmentally regulated volatiles geosmin and 2-methylisoborneol attract a soil arthropod to Streptomyces bacteria promoting spore dispersal. 6. Nat Microbiol 5:821–829. Other interesting stories: Silicon nanowires help bacteria harvest light to fix carbon dioxide Bacterium produces membrane balls containing enzymes to help digest lignin   Email questions or comments to bacteriofiles at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening! Subscribe: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Android, or RSS. Support the show at Patreon, or check out the show at Twitter or Facebook.

The TWiMmers explore detection of SARS-CoV-2 on surfaces in an ophthalmology examination room, the ability of stressed populations of Yersinia bacteria to survive antimicrobial treatment within host tissues, and how volatile organic chemicals produced by soil microbes attract arthropods which in turn disperse bacterial spores. Subscribe to TWiM (free) on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Android, RSS, or by email. Become a patron of TWiM. Links for this episode SARS-CoV-2 RNA in ophthalmology room (JAMA Ophth) Stressed Yersinia survive doxycycline treatment (mBio) Volatiles, a soil arthropod, and Streptomyces spore dispersal (Nature) Image credit Send your microbiology questions and comments (email or recorded audio) to twim@microbe.tv  

As COVID-19 is taking over the news elsewhere, we decided to focus on other stories from the microbial world, including developing a vaccine for malaria, breakthroughs in protist genomics and using bacteria to help plants grow in salty soil. Links to the news stories discussed during this episode can be found below: Research reveals a new malaria vaccine candidate: www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/…0422132930.htm Recently-discovered bacteria could be used as a biopesticide: phys.org/news/2020-04-bioinse…ented-bacterium.html Scientists use bacteria to help plants grow in salty soil: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/20…b-sub042320.php Devloping genetic tools to understand protist DNA: www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/04/ne…pic-marine-life The effect of urbanisation on infectious disease outbreaks: www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/…0421112557.htm How do Streptomyces attract insects?: www.newscientist.com/article/223985…invertebrates/

How can the intricate relationship between soil microbiota and plants be managed for improved plant health? Linda Kinkel discusses new insights into the plant rhizosphere and the ways that some Streptomyces isolates can protect agricultural crops against bacterial, fungal, oomycete, and nematode infections. Julie’s Biggest Takeaways: The soil microbiome is extremely dynamic, with boom-and-bust cycles driven by nutrient fluxes, microbial interactions, plant-driven microbial interactions, and signaling interactions. Finding the source of these boom-and-bust cycles can help people to manage the microbiome communities and produce plant-beneficial communities for agricultural purposes.  Rhizosphere soil is soil closely associated with the root and is distinct from rhizoplane soil that directly touches the root. The endophytic rhizosphere are those microbes that get inside the root. Many scientists view these communities as a continuum rather than sharply delineated. Plants provide necessary carbon for the largely heterotrophic soil microbiota, and these microorganisms help the plants in several ways too:  Microbes mediate plant growth by production of plant growth hormones. Microbes provide nutrients through mechanisms like nitrogen fixation or phosphorus solubilization. Microbes protect the plant from stress or drought conditions. Through a University of Minnesota plant pathology program, potatos were passaged in a field for over 2 decades to study potato diseases. Over time, researchers found fewer diseases in test crops, which led the plot to be abandoned in the late 1970s. In the 1980s, Dr. Neil Anderson planted potatoes to see if they would develop disease, but neither Verticillium wilt nor potato scab developed among the plants. Soil from the field (and on the potatoes) contained Streptomyces isolates that showed antimicrobial activity against bacteria, fungi, nematodes, and oomycetes. This discovery led Neil, new University of Minnesota professor Linda, and their collaborators to study the antimicrobial activity of natural Streptomyces isolates from around the world. Inoculation quickly adds specific microbial lineages to soil microbiome communities. Alternatively, land can be managed by providing nutrients to encourage the growth of specific species, like Streptomyces, within a given plot, but this takes longer to develop. How are soil microbiomes inoculated? Microbes can be: Added to the seed coating before planting.  Placed in the furrow when the seed is planted. Distributed into the irrigation system. Links for this Episode: Linda Kinkel website at University of Minnesota Essarioui A. et al. Inhibitory and Nutrient Use Phenotypes Among Coexisting Fusarium and Streptomyces Populations Suggest Local Coevolutionary Interactions in Soil. Environmental Microbiology. 2020. Schlatter D.C. et al. Inhibitory Interaction Networks Among Coevolved Streptomyces Populations from Prairie Soils. PLoS One. 2019.  Schlatter D.C. et al. Resource Use of Soilborne Streptomyces Varies with Location, Phylogeny, and Nitrogen Amendment. Microbial Ecology. 2013. Small Things Considered blog: Are Oomycetes Fungi or What? International Year of Plant Health HOM Tidbit: Austin-Bourke P.M. Emergence of Potato Blight, 1843-1846. Nature. 1965.  

This episode: Earth's iron deposits could have been created by anaerobic light-harvesting microbes instead of those that make oxygen! Download Episode (9.3 MB, 13.5 minutes) Show notes: Microbe of the episode: Streptomyces avidinii News item Takeaways In the ancient earth, the sun was dimmer, the world was colder, and oxygen was rare because photosynthesis had not yet evolved. Without oxygen to oxidize it, iron remained in its soluble, more accessible form, and many organisms took advantage of it for anaerobic metabolism. But was it photosynthesis and the oxygen it created that transformed most of the planet's iron into its insoluble form, creating large iron deposits in the ground? This study explores the possibility that it was another form of light-harvesting metabolism, called photoferrotrophy, that uses light and the transformation of iron to generate energy. This hypothesis is found to be consistent with the evidence we have about what the early earth was like. Journal Paper: Thompson KJ, Kenward PA, Bauer KW, Warchola T, Gauger T, Martinez R, Simister RL, Michiels CC, Llirós M, Reinhard CT, Kappler A, Konhauser KO, Crowe SA. 2019. Photoferrotrophy, deposition of banded iron formations, and methane production in Archean oceans. Sci Adv 5:eaav2869. Other interesting stories: Gut microbes help whales digest tricky fats in their diet Bacteria deliver antibiotic to competitors using capsules made of its own membrane (paper)   Email questions or comments to bacteriofiles at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening! Subscribe: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Android, or RSS. Support the show at Patreon, or check out the show at Twitter or Facebook.

Betsy Parkinson is an Assistant Professor of  Medicinal Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at Purdue University. The motto of the lab is “From Microbes to Medicines”. She is looking for new anticancer and antibiotic medicines in the soils by looking at Streptomyces bacteria. Betsy explains that bacteria defend themselves against other bacteria and fungus by creating antibiotics. We can use the antibiotics that bacteria produce to combat bacteria that can attack us. Betsy reminds us to not ask for antibiotics when we don’t need them, such as when you have a cold virus. She describes the differences between bacteria, fungi, and viruses, and presents photographs of bacteria grown in her lab.         Links: Betsy’s Chemistry page: https://www.chem.purdue.edu/people/profile/eparkins    Photos of her lab: https://www.parkinsonlaboratory.com/pictures

This episode: Ocean bacteria brought up from the sea floor into the air can help create clouds! Download Episode (6.1 MB, 8.9 minutes) Show notes: Microbe of the episode: Streptomyces thermodiastaticus News item Takeaways The ocean is an important player affecting the climate of the planet, in many ways. Its effects on clouds influence the amount of solar radiation reflected back into space or trapped as heat, and microbes play a role in this effect. Certain microbes make particles that form the nucleus of water droplets or ice crystals that make up clouds, and other microbes can perform this nucleation themselves. In this study, an unusual combination of a phytoplankton bloom and strong winds and currents, all in the right places, led to a large number of ice-nucleating bacteria being fed and then brought up from the sea floor and launched into the air, possibly affecting weather patterns in the Arctic. Journal Paper: Creamean JM, Cross JN, Pickart R, McRaven L, Lin P, Pacini A, Hanlon R, Schmale DG, Ceniceros J, Aydell T, Colombi N, Bolger E, DeMott PJ. 2019. Ice Nucleating Particles Carried From Below a Phytoplankton Bloom to the Arctic Atmosphere. Geophys Res Lett 46:8572–8581. Other interesting stories: Bacterial immune system (CRISPR/Cas) could save bananas from fungus that wipes them out Potentially useful antibiotic produced by gut microbe (paper)   Email questions or comments to bacteriofiles at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening! Subscribe: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Android, or RSS. Support the show at Patreon, or check out the show at Twitter or Facebook.

This episode: First episode of a climate-related arc! Considering microorganisms is important when predicting the amount of carbon coming from soil as temperature increases! Download Episode (4.7 MB, 6.75 minutes) Show notes: Microbe of the episode: Streptomyces virus Zemlya News item Takeaways Soil as a whole has a big influence on the climate of the planet, by enabling the communities of organisms that live in it to interact and grow, taking up gases from the atmosphere and putting others back in. Even aside from plants that grow in it, the other organisms in soil can respire and break down compounds to produce CO2, adding to what's in the atmosphere already. There has long been observed a relationship between ambient temperatures and this respiration in soil, such that more heat means more activity and more gases released from the soil, but today's study found that the microbial biomass in a given piece of land can have a big effect on the temperature/respiration relationship. Journal Paper: Čapek P, Starke R, Hofmockel KS, Bond-Lamberty B, Hess N. 2019. Apparent temperature sensitivity of soil respiration can result from temperature driven changes in microbial biomass. Soil Biol Biochem 135:286–293. Other interesting stories: Phosphate-solubilizing bacteria could help replace fertilizer for plants (paper) Ciliate protists have bacterial microbiomes too   Email questions or comments to bacteriofiles at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening! Subscribe: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Android, or RSS. Support the show at Patreon, or check out the show at Twitter or Facebook.

This episode: Pigmented bacteria can be used in a cancer imaging technique that combines light and sound! Download Episode (8.9 MB, 9.75 minutes) Show notes: Microbe of the episode: Streptomyces bellus Takeaways Because "cancer" is a general term that describes many different forms of disease affecting different cells in different parts of the body, effective cancer treatment relies on understanding the location and physiology of the cancer in a given patient. New imaging technologies for diagnosis and analysis of cancer and for cancer research can be very valuable, especially if they don't require big investments of money and space. One promising imaging technology is called multispectral optoacoustic imaging, or MSOT. This uses pulses of light to create vibrations as pigments in tissues absorb the light and undergo thermal expansion; these vibrations are then detected by ultrasound technology. This approach allows good resolution and depth of imaging without large equipment like MRI machines, but the best results require adding pigments into the body. In this study, scientists showed that the photosynthetic pigments of purple non-sulfur bacteria can be useful in this optoacoustic imaging, providing a somewhat long-term, nontoxic approach. It proved especially interesting when they discovered that the wavelength spectrum changing over time was an indication of macrophage activity in the tumors. Journal Paper: Peters L, Weidenfeld I, Klemm U, Loeschcke A, Weihmann R, Jaeger K-E, Drepper T, Ntziachristos V, Stiel AC. 2019. Phototrophic purple bacteria as optoacoustic in vivo reporters of macrophage activity. Nat Commun 10:1191. Other interesting stories: Figuring out the structure of bacterial nanowires   Email questions or comments to bacteriofiles at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening! Subscribe: Apple Podcasts, RSS, Google Play. Support the show at Patreon, or check out the show at Twitter or Facebook

This episode: Mouse gut microbes, from mice or from human donors, can protect mice against arsenic toxicity! Download Episode (6.3 MB, 6.9 minutes) Show notes: Microbe of the episode: Streptomyces griseus News item Takeaways Our gut microbes benefit us in many ways, including nutritionally—by producing vitamins and helping to digest food—and by helping us in defense against pathogens and other immunological threats. Many things we do can affect our gut microbes too, positively or negatively. What we eat, toxins we encounter, and other aspects of lifestyle can damage our microbial communities. In this study, we see that the reverse could be true, that gut microbes, and specifically one called Faecalibacterium prausnitzii, can protect their host against toxins such as arsenic. Journal Paper: Coryell M, McAlpine M, Pinkham NV, McDermott TR, Walk ST. 2018. The gut microbiome is required for full protection against acute arsenic toxicity in mouse models. Nat Commun 9:5424. Other interesting stories: Using bacteria to remediate rust on iron (paper) New large viruses discovered infecting bacteria in human gut Cool podcast about gardening that often mentions microbes   Email questions or comments to bacteriofiles at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening! Subscribe: Apple Podcasts, RSS, Google Play. Support the show at Patreon, or check out the show at Twitter or Facebook

Coral matchmaking and antimicrobial dirt!! Interview with Associate Professor David Suggett from UTS: University of Technology Sydney Coral zooxanthellae matchmaker for the  Larval Restoration Project and coral restoration expert Need an infection treated? Rub it with some Streptomyces inhabited dirt from the town of West Fermanagh Scarplands (known locally as Boho!)    

This episode: Purple phototrophic bacteria could use certain kinds of wastewater, along with electric current, to produce valuable products like hydrogen without much waste! Thanks to Dr. Ioanna Vasiliadou for her contribution! Download Episode (12.7 MB, 13.9 minutes) Show notes: Microbe of the episode: Streptomyces tendae News item Takeaways Purple phototrophic bacteria can take light energy and use it to help power their metabolism. They're not dependent on it like plants, but can use light or other energy sources for their versatile metabolism. This versatility makes them very interesting candidates for industrial biotechnology applications. These bacteria can take in various combinations of nutrients and produce a number of different valuable products, including protein-rich feed, bioplastics, and biofuels such as hydrogen gas. Today's study shows they can also take up electrons directly to help make their biofuel production process even more environmentally sustainable. Journal Paper: Vasiliadou IA, Berná A, Manchon C, Melero JA, Martinez F, Esteve-Nuñez A, Puyol D. 2018. Biological and Bioelectrochemical Systems for Hydrogen Production and Carbon Fixation Using Purple Phototrophic Bacteria. Front Energy Res 6:107. Other interesting stories: Looking at which microbes degrade classic paintings, and how Neurotransmitter-consuming gut microbes correlated with fewer signs of depression (paper) Phages don't always transfer the same way in fecal microbe transplants (paper)   Email questions or comments to bacteriofiles at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening! Subscribe: Apple Podcasts, RSS, Google Play. Support the show at Patreon, or check out the show at Twitter or Facebook

This episode: Intricate networks of tunnels in garnet gemstones seem to have come from tunneling microorganisms! Thanks to Magnus Ivarsson for his contribution! Download Episode (5.4 MB, 5.9 minutes) Show notes: Microbe of the episode: Streptomyces griseosporeus News item Journal Papers: Ivarsson M, Skogby H, Phichaikamjornwut B, Bengtson S, Siljeström S, Ounchanum P, Boonsoong A, Kruachanta M, Marone F, Belivanova V, Holmström S. 2018. Intricate tunnels in garnets from soils and river sediments in Thailand – Possible endolithic microborings. PLOS ONE 13:e0200351. Other interesting stories: Swimming algae can move through bloodstream to deliver drugs Mosquito microbes engineered to inhibit spread of malaria (paper) A probiotic inhibits a pathogen by interfering with its signaling between cells Healthy microbiota seems important for mice recovering from heart attack   Email questions or comments to bacteriofiles at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening! Subscribe: Apple Podcasts, RSS, Google Play. Support the show at Patreon, or check out the show at Twitter or Facebook

This episode: A virus designed to target cancer could also help eliminate hidden HIV infections! Thanks to Nischal Ranganath for his contribution! Download Episode (8.7 MB, 9.5 minutes) Show notes: Microbe of the episode: Streptomyces pluricolorescens News item Journal Paper: Ranganath N, Sandstrom TS, Schinkel B, C S, Côté SC, Angel JB. 2018. The Oncolytic Virus MG1 Targets and Eliminates Cells Latently Infected With HIV-1: Implications for an HIV Cure. J Infect Dis 217:721–730. Other interesting stories: Gut microbes could affect immune defense against liver cancer   Email questions or comments to bacteriofiles at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening! Subscribe: Apple Podcasts, RSS, Google Play. Support the show at Patreon, or check out the show at Twitter or Facebook

Welcome to The Nutritional Pearls Podcast! Focusing on topics that include digestion, adrenal fatigue, leaky gut, supplementation, electrolytes, stomach acid, and so much more, “The Nutritional Pearls Podcast” features Christine Moore, NTP and is hosted by Jimmy Moore, host of the longest running nutritional podcast on the Internet.  Sharing nuggets of wisdom from Christine's training as a Nutritional Therapy Practitioner and Jimmy's years of podcasting and authoring international bestselling health and nutrition books, they will feature a new topic of interest and fascination in the world of nutritional health each Monday. Listen in today as Christine and Jimmy talk all about vitamins in Episode 12. Here's what Christine and Jimmy talked about in Episode 13: 1. Microbial cells outnumber our human cells 10 to 1. 2. We have 2 to 4 pounds of microbes living in us 3. Microbiota refers to everything that lives in the gut tube. These can be beneficial or harmful A. Beneficial microbes-most fall within these two categories: 1. Lactobacillus 2. Bifidobacterium B. Harmful microbes 1. Parasites 2. Yeast 3. Fungus 4. Viruses 4. Everyone has a different composition of gut bugs-these compositions in each person can change due to age, diet, or geography. There are 2 different kinds of microbes: Transient and Native A. Transient Microbes-Most common strains are from lacto and bifido species-these are the main ones used to create probiotic supplements and cultured foods. Lactobaccilus Acidophilus is the most common and versatile probiotics. 1. They come into the body to do their work then leave through the stool-very transient. 2. They work with other microbes that are native in nature. 3. We acquire these transient microbes from dietary sources B. Native microbes-bactoroids, bacillus, Streptomyces 1. Enter our bodies through the air, soil and water supply (environmental sources) 2. These buggers are more resistant to stomach pH and more resilient to antibiotics 3. These native microbes have anti-fungi, anti-parasitic, and anti-viral properties 5. Things that can go wrong when we don't have a population of good gut microbes A. Excess bloating B. Chronic ear infection C. Yeast infections D. Diarrhea E. Constipation F. Flatulence G. Nail fungus H. Hormonal imbalances I. Eczema J. Acne 6. We need good gut microbes to: 1. Help protect the intestinal wall 2. Produce vitamin K2, and three B vitamins, B1 or Thiamine, B2 or Riboflavin, and B12 or cobalamin 3. Absorb nutrients 4. Help digest foods 5. Balance intestinal pH 6. Fight harmful microbes 7. Help improve bowel transit time 8. Have good mental health-90% of the body's serotonin is produced in the intestines 7. There are many things that can permanently affect the composition of our microbiome: A. Stress B. Diet high in sugar and refined carbs C. Contraceptives D. Vaccinations E. Overuse of antibiotics or other prescription drugs 8. Food sources of probiotics A. kombucha (fermented tea) B. Kefir (fermented milk) C. Sauerkraut (fermented cabbage) D. Pickles (fermented cucumbers) E. Kimchi (Korean dish using fermented vegetables, spices and seasonings) F. Full fat raw dairy, especially goat's and sheep's milk like milk, cheese and yogurt G. If you want to do a plant-based ketogenic diet: 1. Tempeh (fermented soybeans) 2. Miso (fermented soybean, barley, or brown rice with koji which is a fungus) 3. Natto (Japanese dish with fermented soybeans) Nutritional Pearl for Episode 13: We need to make sure our gut health stays as healthy as possible so we can have good digestive function, a healthy immune system, and good mental health. BECOME A NUTRITIONAL THERAPY PRACTITIONER Sign up for the 9-month program NOTICE OF DISCLOSURE: Paid sponsorship RESERVE YOUR TICKETS AT KETOFEST.COM NOTICE OF DISCLOSURE: Paid sponsorship YOUR NEW KETO DIET ALLY NOTICE OF DISCLOSURE: Paid sponsorship LINKS MENTIONED IN EPISODE 13 – SUPPORT OUR SPONSOR: Register now for Ketofest at ketofest.com – SUPPORT OUR SPONSOR: Complete nutriton for nutritional ketosis (COUPON CODE LLVLC FOR 10% OFF YOUR FIRST ORDER) – SUPPORT OUR SPONSOR: Become A Nutritional Therapy Practitioner – NutritionalTherapy.com

This episode: Certain transposons, genetic elements that move around the genome on their own, have co-opted the bacterial immune system, CRISPR, to use for jumping to new hosts! Thanks to Dr. Joseph Peters for his contribution! Download Episode (10.7 MB, 11.75 minutes) Show notes: Microbe of the episode: Streptomyces yokosukanensis Journal Paper: Peters JE, Makarova KS, Shmakov S, Koonin EV. 2017. Recruitment of CRISPR-Cas systems by Tn7-like transposons. Proc Natl Acad Sci 114:E7358–E7366. Other interesting stories: Microbe found producing antibiotic previously only known to be man-made (paper) Modifying genetics to change bacterial colony colors Making microbe communities that help plants in specific ways Gut microbes can protect mice against death from sepsis Fungus affects cicada behavior to infect more hosts   Email questions or comments to bacteriofiles at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening! Subscribe: iTunes, RSS, Google Play. Support the show at Patreon, or check out the show at Twitter or Facebook

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.  

Natsai Audrey Chieza is a designer on a mission -- to reduce pollution in the fashion industry while creating amazing new things to wear. In her lab, she noticed that the bacteria Streptomyces coelicolor makes a striking red-purple pigment, and now she's using it to develop bold, color-fast fabric dye that cuts down on water waste and chemical runoff, compared with traditional dyes. And she isn't alone in using synthetic biology to redefine our material future; think -- "leather" made from mushrooms and superstrong yarn made from spider-silk protein. We're not going to build the future with fossil fuels, Chieza says. We're going to build it with biology. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Natsai Audrey Chieza est une créatrice en mission : réduire la pollution dans l'industrie de la mode tout en créant de beaux et nouveaux vêtements. Dans son laboratoire, elle a remarqué que la bactérie Streptomyces coelicolor produit un pigment d'un rouge-violet saisissant. Elle l'utilise à présent pour créer une audacieuse teinture grand-teint qui réduit le gaspillage d'eau et l'écoulement de produits chimiques par rapport aux teintures traditionnelles. Elle n'est pas la seule à utiliser la biologie synthétique pour redéfinir le futur de nos matières ; pensez au cuir fabriqué à partir de champignons et à du fil ultra-résistant à partir de protéine de soie d'araignée. « Nous n'allons pas construire le futur avec l'énergie fossile, affirme-t-elle. Nous allons le construire avec la biologie. »

Нацай Одри Чиза — это дизайнер, миссия которой уменьшить загрязнения в модной индустрии путём создания новых потрясающих технологий для изготовления одежды. В своей лаборатории она заметила, что бактерия Streptomyces coelicolor создаёт яркий красно-пурпурный пигмент, и теперь она использует его как цветной краситель для ткани, который сокращает расход воды и не содержит химикатов в отличие от обычных красителей. И она не единственная, кто при помощи синтетической биологии преображает наше материальное будущее. Задумайтесь — «кожа», выращенная из грибов, и сверхпрочная пряжа, сделанная из белка паучьего шёлка. «Мы не собираемся строить будущее на основе ископаемого топлива, — говорит Чиза, — мы построим его c помощью биологии».

Natsai Audrey Chieza é uma designer com um propósito: reduzir a poluição na indústria da moda e, ao mesmo tempo, criar novidades incríveis para vestirmos. Em seu laboratório, ela notou que a bactéria "Streptomyces coelicolor" produz um pigmento lilás avermelhado, que agora ela está usando para desenvolver um tingimento arrojado, com cores que não desbotam, que reduz o desperdício de água e a geração de resíduos químicos, comparado com os tingimentos têxteis tradicionais. E ela não está sozinha ao usar a biologia sintética para redefinir o futuro dos nossos materiais: imaginem só isso -- "couro" feito de cogumelos e fios super-resistentes feitos da proteína da seda da aranha. Não vamos construir o futuro com combustíveis fósseis, afirma Chieza. Vamos construí-lo com a biologia.

Natsai Audrey Chieza is a designer on a mission -- to reduce pollution in the fashion industry while creating amazing new things to wear. In her lab, she noticed that the bacteria Streptomyces coelicolor makes a striking red-purple pigment, and now she's using it to develop bold, color-fast fabric dye that cuts down on water waste and chemical runoff, compared with traditional dyes. And she isn't alone in using synthetic biology to redefine our material future; think -- "leather" made from mushrooms and superstrong yarn made from spider-silk protein. We're not going to build the future with fossil fuels, Chieza says. We're going to build it with biology.

Natsai Audrey Chieza es diseñadora de profesión, cuya misión es reducir la contaminación en la industria de la moda, al tiempo que crea maravillosas prendas para lucir. En su laboratorio, Chieza notó que la bacteria Streptomyces coelicolor produce un pigmento de un sorprendente color rojo púrpura, con el cual está desarrollando una tintura para telas, de colores intensos e indelebles. Esta tintura se diferencia de las tradicionales porque reducen el gasto de agua y el uso de químicos. Pero Chieza no es la única en valerse de la biología sintética para redefinir nuestro futuro material; hay otros emprendimientos que están haciendo "cuero" a partir de hongos y un hilo de alta resistencia a partir de la proteína de la araña de seda. Según Chieza, no lograremos construir el futuro con combustibles fósiles, sino con la biología.

나차이 오드리 치자는 패션업계에서의 오염을 줄이면서도 멋진 옷들을 만들어내기위한 미션을 가진 디자이너입니다. 그녀는 실험실에서 스트렙토마이시스 코엘리컬러 (Streptomyces coelicolor) 박테리아가 적색-자주색 염료를 만드는것을 발견하고 현재 전통적인 염효에 비해 물 낭비와 화학 유거수를 줄이는 선명하고 염색이 빠른 패브릭 염료를 개발하는데 코엘리컬러 박테리아를 사용하고 있습니다. 물질적 미래를 재정의하기 위해 합성생물학을 사용하려는 것은 그녀 혼자만이 아닙니다. 생각해보세요 -- 버섯으로 만든 가죽과 거미줄의 단백질로 만든 튼튼한 실들을요. 화석연료로 우리의 미래를 건설하지 않을 것이라고 치자는 말합니다. 우리는 생물학으로 이루어낼 것입니다.

This episode: Microbes from obese mice seemed helpful in protecting other mice somewhat from an unhealthy lifestyle. Download Episode (8.5 MB, 9.25 minutes) Show notes: Microbe of the episode: Streptomyces thermoviolaceus News item Journal Paper: Nicolas S, Blasco‐Baque V, Fournel A, Gilleron J, Klopp P, Waget A, Ceppo F, Marlin A, Padmanabhan R, Iacovoni JS, Tercé F, Cani PD, Tanti J-F, Burcelin R, Knauf C, Cormont M, Serino M. 2017. Transfer of dysbiotic gut microbiota has beneficial effects on host liver metabolism. Mol Syst Biol 13:921. Other interesting stories: Global warming could harm reptiles by disrupting their gut bacteria Insect microbes that start causing disease but then stop when their numbers get higher Microbes in sea spray affect the atmosphere and climate How breastmilk bacteria affect infant's gut community Sea sponge bacteria can produce toxic flame retardant chemicals   Post questions or comments here or email to bacteriofiles at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening! Subscribe: iTunes, RSS, Google Play. Support the show at Patreon, or check out the show at Twitter or Facebook

The TWiMbionts explore the role of bacteria in the genesis of moonmilk, and how ancient host proteins can be used to engineer resistance to virus infection. Hosts:  Vincent Racaniello, Michele Swanson and Elio Schaechter. Subscribe to TWiM (free) on iPhone, Android, RSS, or by email. You can also listen on your mobile device with the Microbeworld app. Become a patron of TWiM. Links for this episode Role of Streptomyces in moonmilk (bioRxiv) TWiM 51: Cave science with Hazel Barton Moonmilk (Wikipedia) Ancient proteins for virus resistance (Cell Rep) Image credit Letters read on TWiM 157  Send your microbiology questions and comments (email or recorded audio) to twim@microbe.tv  

เพลงเปิดเบบี้เวอร์ชั่น / ดราม่าอาบัน / รางวัลโนเบล สาขาการแพทย์ / โรคพยาธิตัวกลม / river blindness และ เท้าช้าง / พิธีประกาศรางวัลอิกโนเบล / รางวัลอิกโนเบล สาขาเคมี ทำไข่สุกให้กลายเป็นไข่ดิบ / อิกโนเบล สาขาฟิสิกส์ สรรพสัตว์ปัสสสาวะ ใช้เวลาเฉลี่ย 21 วินาที / ต่อครึ่งหลังโนเบลสาขาการแพทย์ ชีวิตและการค้นพบยารักษาโรคมาลาเรียของอาจารย์ถู โยวโยว   SHOW NOTE รางวัลโนเบลสาขาการแพทย์ -1,2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxBe5t3V2e0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uqp3cnSAhY โรคจากพยาธิตัวกลม River Blindness (onchocerciasis) พยาธิตาบอด     Elephantiasis เท้าช้าง   คุณ Satochi Omura เจอแบคทีเรีย Streptomyces avermitilis ฆ่าพยาธิได้ คุณ William Campbell สกัดสาร avermectin และดัดแปลงเป็นยา ivermectin โครงการแจกยาให้คน https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t96_xbpXH-M พยาธิหนอนหัวใจในหมา IG NOBEL 2015 วิดิโอโปรโม พิธีประกาศรางวัล https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6JhEFNrmk0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqVCl2VoZqU รางวัลอิกโนเบล สาขาเคมี มอบแก่ทีมวิจัยผู้ค้นพบวิธีการ ทำให้ไข่สุก ย้อนกลับกลายเป็นไข่ดิบได้ (ประมาณนึง) -1,2,3,4,5 REFERENCE: "Shear-Stress-Mediated Refolding of Proteins from Aggregates and Inclusion Bodies," https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHMY4G9gTPA   รางวัลอิกโนเบล สาขาฟิสิกส์ มอบแก่ทีมวิจัย ผู้ค้นพบว่าสัตว์เลี้ยงลูกด้วยนมเล็กใหญ่เกือบทุกชนิดใช้เวลาฉี่เท่ากัน คือประมาณ 21 วินาที + - 13 วินาที -1,2,3 REFERENCE: "Duration of Urination Does Not Change With Body Size," Patricia J. Yang, Jonathan Pham, Jerome Choo, and David L. Hu, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 111 no. 33, August 19, 2014, pp. 11932–11937. hydrostatic pressure กลับมารางวัลโนเบลการแพทย์ ว่าด้วยยารักษามาลาเรีย เรื่องราวชีวิตของอาจารย์ถู โยวโยว และการค้นพบ artemisinin -1,2,3,4,5,6 A Handbook of Prescriptions for Emergencies by Ge Hong (284–346 CE).   https://www.facebook.com/witcastthailand/photos/a.384378794958298.93979.380263635369814/1037871079609063/?type=3

  Vincent, Elio, and Michael reveal that a soil-dwelling nematode can recognize and respond to a bacterial quorum sensing molecule through a sensory neuron.

Zulma Rocio Suarez Instituto de Biotecnología, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá, COLOMBIA speaks on "Plant-growth promotion and biocontrol properties of Colombian Streptomyces spp. isolates to reduce bacterial diseases of Rice". This seminar has been recorded by ICGEB Trieste

Für das Überleben von Bacillus subtilis ist eine verlässliche Überwachung der Integrität der Zellhülle essentiell, um diese zu schützen und bei Schäden adäquat zu reagieren. Neben den ECF � Faktoren spielen Zwei-Komponenten-Systeme (2KS) in der Zellhüllstressantwort von B. subtilis eine zentrale Rolle. Eines dieser Systeme, das LiaRS- 2KS reagiert auf eine große Anzahl verschiedener Zellwand-Antibiotika sowie andere zellhüllstress-auslösende Substanzen. Die zelluläre Funktion und Rolle des Lia-Systems konnte bisher nicht genau definiert werden. In der hier vorliegenden Dissertation wurde das Lia-System erstmals hinsichtlich seiner funktionalen Rolle in B. subtilis untersucht. Im ersten Teil der Ergebnisse wurde eine detaillierte Analyse der LiaR-vermittelten Zellhüllstressantwort in B. subtilisvorgenommen. Transkriptom-Studien dienten zur Identifizierung des LiaR-Regulons. Hierbei wurde die Genexpression des Wildtyps mit zwei Mutanten, die den „ON“ (�liaF) und „OFF“ (�liaR) Zustand des Lia-Systems repräsentierten, verglichen. Von den dabei identifizierten drei potentiellen LiaR-Zielloci (liaIH, yhcYZ-ydhA, ydhE) konnten durch anschließende Folgeuntersuchungen nur die Gene liaI und liaH als in vivo relevante Zielgene für LiaR verifiziert werden. Umfangreiche phänotypische Analysen zeigten, dass �liaIH-Mutanten nur schwach sensitiv auf einige Antibiotika sowie oxidativen Stress reagierten. Ebenso vermittelt eine Überexpression von LiaH in einer �liaF-Mutante keine Resistenz gegenüber stressauslösenden Substanzen. LiaH gehört zur Familie der Phagenschock-Proteine. Weitere Mitglieder dieser Familie sind PspA aus Escherichia coli und Vipp1 aus Arabidopsis thaliana, die große oligomere Ringstrukturen bilden. Die strukturelle Untersuchung von LiaH ergab, dass auch dieses Protein große Ringe bildet (>1MDa). Der zweite Ergebnisteil befasst sich mit der Untersuchung der Stimuluswahrnehmung der Zellhüllstress-detektierenden Systeme in B. subtilis. Die Zellhüllstressantwort auf das Antibiotikum Bacitracin wurde hierbei mittels �-Galaktosidase-Assay sowie Western Blot- Analyse erforscht. Das Bce-System reagiert dabei am stärksten und spezifischsten auf Bacitracin-Stress. Es wurde ebenfalls festgestellt, dass der ABC-Transporter BceAB essentiell für die Stimuluswahrnehmung ist und dass das Bce-System an sich eine Resistenzdeterminante in B. subtilis darstellt. Das Lia-System hingegen wird erst bei höheren Bacitracin-Konzentrationen induziert. Zusammengefasst deuten diese Ergebnisse darauf hin, dass das Bce-System Bacitracin direkt wahrnimmt (drug sensing) und das LiaSystem in indirekter Weise auf Zellhüllstress ausgelöst durch Bacitracin reagiert (damage sensing). Im dritten Teil der Ergebnisse wurdendie zelluläre Lokalisation von LiaI, LiaH und LiaG sowie die Beziehung der Proteine untereinander mittels Fluoreszenz-Mikroskopie und biochemische Ansätze untersucht. Die Membranproteine LiaI und LiaG sind unter Stressbedingungen in der Zellmembran lokalisiert. LiaH, ein cytoplasmatisches Protein verändert unter Stressbedingungen seine Lokalisation vom Cytoplasma an die Membran. Die Funktion von LiaH scheint sich also an der Zellmembran zu vollziehen, wobei LiaI als Interaktionspartner identifiziert wurde. Da in einer �liaI-Mutante LiaH unter Stressbedingungenebenfallsnoch an die Zellmembran assoziert ist, wurde nach weiteren Interaktionspartnern von LiaH gesucht. Eine umfangreiche bacterial-two-hybrid-Analyse ergab, dass sowohl LiaH als auch LiaI und LiaG in ein Interaktionsnetzwerk eingebettet sind, in welchem das bisher uncharakterisierte Protein YvlB eine Schlüsselrolle spielt.Die ebenso in dieses Netzwerk involvierten Proteine YjoB, DnaK und HtpG üben als Proteasen/Chaperone Funktionen in der Faltung und Degradierung von Proteinen aus. Ein Zusammenspiel des Lia-Systems und des Schlüsselproteins YvlB mit den Proteasen/Chaperonen als Reaktion auf Zellhüllstress ist denkbar. Die Phagenschock-Homologe PspA in Streptomyces lividans und E. coli üben einen erheblichen Einfluss auf die Proteinsekretion sowie die elektronenmotorische Kraft der Zelle aus. Daher wurde im letzten Teil der Ergebnisse die Rolle von LiaH in der Proteinsekretion sowie im Energiestoffwechsel näher analysiert. Ein Einfluß des Lia- Systems in der Aufrechterhaltung der elektronenmotorischen Kraft der Zelle konnte nicht bestätigt werden. Durch die Analyse des Sekretoms in B. subtilis konnte gezeigt werden, dass das extrazelluläre Proteom einer �PliaI-liaIH-Mutante im Vergleich zum Wildtyp signifikante Veränderungen in der Komposition aufwies.So wurde im Sekretom der �PliaIliaIH- Mutante vor allem das Zellwand-assoziierte Protein WapAidentifiziert, welches im Wildtyp oder in einer �liaF-Mutante nicht auftrat. Das Lia-System beeinflußt somit auch die Proteinsekretion von B. subtilis, wobei die molekularen Mechanismen noch unbekannt sind.

This week we explore the role of microbes in drug development, food production and soil fertility. We investigate how bacteria such as Streptomyces are used and improved to make antibiotics, discover how gut microbes in cattle can be manipulated to increase growth and reduce environmental impact, and we visit the Chelsea flower show to learn how Rhizobia found in the roots of legumes could be used to improve crop growth and food availability. Also, in the news, how shift-work could affect your fertility, a new method of data storage using DNA, the key to growing the tastiest tomatoes and the world's biggest model Diamond. Plus we explore the micro-climates created by motorways in our Question of the Week!

This week we explore the role of microbes in drug development, food production and soil fertility. We investigate how bacteria such as Streptomyces are used and improved to make antibiotics, discover how gut microbes in cattle can be manipulated to increase growth and reduce environmental impact, and we visit the Chelsea flower show to learn how Rhizobia found in the roots of legumes could be used to improve crop growth and food availability. Also, in the news, how shift-work could affect your fertility, a new method of data storage using DNA, the key to growing the tastiest tomatoes and the... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

This week we explore the role of microbes in drug development, food production and soil fertility. We investigate how bacteria such as Streptomyces are used and improved to make antibiotics, discover how gut microbes in cattle can be manipulated to increase growth and reduce environmental impact, and we visit the Chelsea flower show to learn how Rhizobia found in the roots of legumes could be used to improve crop growth and food availability. Also, in the news, how shift-work could affect your fertility, a new method of data storage using DNA, the key to growing the tastiest tomatoes and the... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Although plants are a very important part of a garden, we must not forget about the important contribution that soil makes. Bacteria living in the soil also produce compounds important as modern antibiotics.

Como combaten las infecciones las ardillas en hibernación En la hibernación de las ardillas su sistema inmunológico parece bloquearse. Durante los meses de hibernación ellas se despiertan una vez a la semana; al parecer esta es una manera de activar sus sistema inmunológico y defenderse de los numerosos patógenos que habitan en sus madrigueras. Un parasito que engaña a las ratas El parasito causante de la toxoplasmosis realiza una parte de su ciclo de vida en los gatos y otra en las ratas. Científicos han encontrado que para pasar de la rata al gato, el parasito reprograma el cerebro de la rata para que esta no tenga la respuesta instintiva de huir cuando un gato se acerca. De esta manera, el gato puede cazar a la rata e infectarse con el parasito. Obteniendo antitoxinas de los caballos Durante años se han utilizado caballos para producir antitoxinas (anticuerpos que inmovilizan toxinas peligrosas). El agente que produce la toxina es inactivado (modificado para que deje de ser letal) e inyectado en el caballo para que este produzca los anticuerpos. Posteriormente, estos anticuerpos son aislados a partir de la sangre del caballo y utilizados como antitoxina en los seres humanos. El maravilloso olor de la lluvia Se ha descubierto que el olor de la tierra mojada es producido por una sustancia llamada geosmina, producida por Streptomyces coelicolor, una bacteria que forma esporas, muy común en el suelo. Posiblemente, la producción de esta sustancia sea una ventaja evolutiva para la bacteria, ya que este olor atrae animales que al acercarse pueden facilitar la dispersión de las esporas. La disminución de la población mundial de ranas La contaminación y destrucción del medio ambiente ha favorecido el desarrollo del hongo Quitridio, patógeno que deteriora la piel de las ranas, en todo el mundo. Como consecuencia, la población mundial de ranas esta disminuyendo, alterando así el equilibrio de los ecosistemas.

Autotrophe Bacteria sind von zentraler Bedeutung für den terrestrischen Kohlenstoffkreislauf, da sie dem an verfügbaren organischen Kohlenstoffverbindungen armen Boden Biomasse zuführen und einen Beitrag zur Reduzierung des atmosphärischen CO2 leisten könnten. Doch während die autotrophen Prozesse und die daran beteiligten Mikroorganismen in aquatischen Habitaten bereits gut untersucht und verstanden sind, besteht noch erheblicher Forschungsbedarf zur Diversität und Abundanz autotropher Bakterienpopulationen in Böden. In dieser Arbeit sollten zentrale Fragen zur Charakterisierung der autotrophen Gemeinschaften mit Werkzeugen der molekularen mikrobiellen Ökologie bearbeitet werden. Die meisten Prokaryota, die mit CO2 als einzige Kohlenstoffquelle zu wachsen vermögen, fixieren dieses über den Calvin-Benson-Bessham Zyklus. Das Schlüsselenzym dieses Zykluses ist die Ribulose-1,5-bisphosphat Carboxylase/Oxygenase (RubisCO). Die große Untereinheit der Form I-RubisCO wird von dem Gen cbbL kodiert, welches phylogenetisch in zwei Hauptentwicklungslinien unterteilt wird: ‚green-like’ und ‚red-like’. Um einen Einblick in die genetische Diversität CO2-fixierender Bakterien in unterschiedlich gedüngten Agrarböden des Dauerdüngungsversuchs Ewiger Roggenbau in Halle/Saale zu erlangen, wurde eine auf PCR basierende Methodik entwickelt, die auf der Erfassung des Funktionsgens cbbL zielt. Es wurden Datenbankrecherchen durchgeführt und mittels den anschließenden vergleichenden Sequenzanalysen und phylogenetischen Untersuchungen bekannter cbbL-Sequenzen spezifische Oligonukleotid-Primerpaare konstruiert, die ausgewählte cbbL-Sequenzen terrestrischer Bakterien der ‚red-like’ bzw. der ‚green-like’ RubisCO-Linien amplifizieren. Mit Hilfe dieser Primer gelang es cbbL-Genbanken anzulegen, die mittels der Restriktions-Fragmentlängen-Polymorphismus-(RFLP)-Analyse und Diversitätindices untersucht und verglichen wurden; ausgewählte Sequenzen wurden einer phylogenetischen Zuordnung unterzogen. Mit den entwickelten Primerpaaren konnten in den untersuchten Böden nur eine geringe Diversität an ‚green-like’ cbbL-Sequenzen festgestellt werden, die phylogenetisch zu den cbbL-Sequenzen von Nitrobacter vulgaris und Nitrobacter winogradskyi nahe verwandt waren. Im Vergleich dazu zeichneten sich die ‚red-like’ cbbL-Sequenzen aus den Böden durch eine hohe Diversität aus, wobei sie phylogenetisch über die gesamte ‚red-like’-Gruppe verteilt waren und sich häufig als nur entfernt verwandt zu bekannten cbbL-Sequenzen herausstellten. Während mit der RFLP-Analyse Bodenbehandlungs-spezifische Muster identifiziert wurden, war nach der phylogenetischen Sequenzanalyse keine Cluster-Bildung in Abhängigkeit von der Bodenbehandlung zu beobachten. Um den Datensatz an vorhandenen ‚red-like’ cbbL-Sequenzen zu erweitern, wurden cbbL-Gene aus verschiedenen kultivierten α- und β-Proteobacteria sowie aus Bakterienisolaten, die in dieser Arbeit aus Boden gewonnen wurden, amplifiziert. Die phylogenetische Sequenzanalyse gruppierte diese cbbL-Sequenzen Taxon-unabhängig zu den verschiedenen Clustern des ‚red-like’-Baums einschließlich der neuen cbbL-Gencluster aus den Halle-Böden. Bakterielle Bodenisolate, die als cbbL-positiv identifiziert wurden, konnten basierend auf ihrer 16S rDNA-Sequenz als Organismen der Gram-positiven Gattungen Bacillus, Streptomyces und Arthrobacter klassifiziert werden. Vertreter dieser bakteriellen Gruppen waren bisher nicht als CO2-Fixierer charakterisiert worden. Der physiologische Beweis eines aktiven CO2-fixierenden Metabolismus über RubisCO steht noch aus. Die Ergebnisse der ‚red-like’ cbbL-Diversitäts-Studie dienten als Grundlage zur Konstruktion weiterer Oligonukleotide, die in der „real-time“ TaqMan-PCR zur Quantifizierung von ‚red-like’ cbbL-Genen aus Boden eingesetzt wurden. Dabei wird ersichtlich, dass in den untersuchten Bodenvarianten bis zu 107 cbbL-Genkopien/g Boden enthalten sind. Die unterschiedlichen Bodenbehandlungen scheinen keinen Einfluss auf die Abundanz von ‚red-like’ cbbL-Genen in Böden zu nehmen.