This Week in Microbiology

On the occasion of TWiM’s 300th episode, we discuss how two college students found a new antibiotic in soil, Barbara Iglewski’s passing, and Elio returns for an appearance.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello,…

From ASM’s Conference for Undergraduate Educators 2023 in Phoenix, TWiM speaks with Amaya Garcia Costas and Gwendolyn Knapp about their approaches to undergraduate microbiology education, and how the…

TWiM provides thoughts on providing better training for a non-academic career, and help celebrate Black in Microbiology Week with a 2023 paper by Ari Kozik, a co-founder of Black Microbiologists Asso…

TWiM reviews how a coating of lipoproteins provides a stabilizing environment on the inner membrane of Bacillus subtilis spores, and a miniaturized device that integrates genetically engineered probi…

TWiM discusses a dispute about whether the mycobiome plays a role in the development of cancer, and the structure and function of channels that are delivered to plant cells by pathogenic bacteria.

Ho…

TWiM explains how phages avoid tRNA-targeting host defenses, and discovery of a new antibiotic from an uncultured bacterium that binds to an immutable target.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Michael Schmi…

TWiM reveals that the ice cream manufacturing environment harbors psychrotrophic bacteria, and identification of a deadly bacterial strain causing widespread deaths of newborns in Uganda.

Hosts: Vinc…

TWiM explains personalized aerosilized phage therapy for a chronic lung infection, and using the combination of antibiotic and a DNA molecule that binds alpha-gal to reduce S. aureus infection in viv…

TWiM reveals that breast milk bioactives are essential for development of the infant microbiome and immunity, and how capsule mutants of Klebsiella pneumoniae can affect bacterial pathogenesis.

Hosts…

TWiM explains how photoferrotrophic bacteria initiated plate tectonics over 2500 million years ago, and how two bacteria work together to cause childhood tooth decay.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Micha…

From ASM Microbe 2023 in Houston, TWiM speaks with Mimi Goldschmidt about her remarkable career in microbiology which included training astronauts to safely bring moon rocks back to Earth.

Hosts: Vin…

TWiM highlights viral defense and counter-defense: cGAS mediated ubiquitination to counter infection, and viral sponges that sequester nucleotide signals to inactivate immunity.

Hosts: Vincent Racani…

TWiM describes a potential connection between a bacterial protein that damages DNA, and human cancers, and how to synthesize antimicrobial natural products from reconstructed bacterial genomes of the…

TWiM investigates the high variability in the rate and amount of current production from microbial fuel cells, and how bacteria link their growth rate to external nutrient conditions via a protein th…

TWiM reveals environmental integrons, bacterial genetic elements notorious for their role in spreading antibiotic resistance, and how Salmonella invasion is controlled by competition among intestinal…

TWiM reveals a new type of satellite virus that requires only phage tails for producing infectious virus particles, and that highly virulent plague bacteria differs from its innocuous enteric predece…

TWiM reveals housefly dispersal of antimicrobial resistant bacteria, and a reproductive organ in squid linked to symbiotic bacteria.

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TWiM reveals quorum-sensing systems that regulate intestinal inflammation and permeability caused by P. aeruginosa, and how plasmids manipulate bacterial behavior through translational regulatory cro…

TWiM presents a protocol for evolving caffeine-tolerant yeast by high school students in the home, and how predator-prey dynamics change when multiple bacteria grow together in biofilms.

Hosts: Vince…

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 se…