Truly grateful for the interactions of this past week in Hong Kong Microbiota I-Center / CUHK. Experienced a new level of fellowship & friendship with colleagues that I hope will continue long after we leave. Lin ZHANG Hein M. Tun Siew Ng

Dear clinical microbiology friends, what antibiotic would you use to reduce Enterococcus growth that would minimally impact gut anaerobes? Doing research-related stool cultivations here (not patient care). Happy for any thoughts.

Looking for suggestions to reduce swarming of a facultative anaerobe (sure looks like Proteus) while performing anaerobic cultivations of stool - media, antibiotics, other? Current media= GMM & TSB/5% blood. Really need those obligate anaerobes.

Want to do long-read sequencing?
Hate how MS methods barely scrape the surface in outlining their non-commercial kit protocols?

Is so, check out:
merenlab.org/data/hmw-dna-e…

we fully outline the HMW DNA extraction protocols used in: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/17….

Honest question:
What would get you to donate your poop (which is information rich & something you just throw away) for scientific studies?
What are your concerns?
Or is it a hard “NO”, no matter the circumstances?

Can anyone recommend tools to calculate the length of lag phase of bacterial growth curve? We used a practical approach to allow comparisons between experiments (lag phase ~OD < 0.2) but reviewer calls this arbitrary (fair enough) and recommends using mathematical curve fits.

It’s #PumpkinSpice season, incl. the return of Starbucks PS latte 🎃🥛☕️. 😍 it or 🤬 it, I’ve got a new mycology project called #WholeLatteDecay to find out which fungi 🍄 prefer pumpkin spice latte-infused growth agar 🧫 over standard & other 🎃-themed nutrient agars! 1/

Anyone know of a primary specimen collection tube that is:
- leakproof
- screw cap & closes with a minimum 1.5 turns
- meets guidelines P650 for human exempt specimens?
- meets guidelines shipping of ethanol in limited quantities?

The 1.5 turns criteria has me stumped.

sleep well

I think we should rename 'research' to 'troubleshooting occasionally sprinkled with serendipity.'

I remember breaking down to my Ph.D. advisor about how stupid I felt while troubleshooting a problem in my project when she handed me this paper. Years later it is still relevant to young students starting off in Science. It's ok to feel stupid, we all do on a regular basis.

Need to find Bilophila in fecal samples.
Everyone recommends BD BBL Bacteroides Bile esculin agar, but its been discontinued. Tried another BBE supplier - Bfragils grew poorly & Bilophila not at all.
Micro friends -- any recommendations?

Earlier this week I was mad & frustrated.
Then an ex-colleague comments.
And an ex-boss emails asking 'is there anything I can do to help?'
You already have.
You are people worth my time & efforts.

I have fought my entire career (20 yrs) to demonstrate that technicians/frontline lab people are WORTHY as authors in scientific literature. Crappy data = crappy results = the bottom line. Why is this still such a struggle?🤔

I adore my Rosalind Franklin minifig. But the quotation from Franklin on the back says everything.

#STANDWITHUKRAINE
As the child of a Latvian refugee parent who fled their country under similar circumstances to what Ukraine is facing today.
This is heartbreaking on levels I never knew existed.
We must not let Putin’s actions go without consequences.

Dynamic genetic adaptation of Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron murine gut colonization biorxiv.org/cgi/content/sh… #biorxiv_micrbio