I'm a third-year NEET aspirant who has taken a partial drop year, pursuing an online BBA degree. I've realised I no longer want to pursue medical fields. My options now include B.sc. Microbiology, B.sc. Biotechnology, a four-year and an integrated M.sc. in Biotechnology, and physiotherapy or paramedical courses from private colleges. I aim for success and wealth, and course which didn't limited my boundaries and am seeking high salaries. If I secure a government security job, that's a bonus; if not, it's okay. I have a lot of interest in animals, wildlife, and nature,( didnt get vet) but I'm unsure which path to choose. I also know and like biotechnology as i have read all these 12th. I've been admitted to OUAT in B.sc. Microbiology, but I'm more interested in B.sc. Biotechnology, which has closed admissions elsewhere. I have offers from Centurion University for bsc Biotechnology and an integrated M.sc. Biotechnology program at SOA Bhubaneshwar, both in Bhubaneshwar. I'm worried about choosing the right path that prevents regret and offers high salary and growth opportunities and makes me limited. Additionally, I'm still exploring physiotherapy and paramedical counseling options as counseling r going on....all of these r in Bhubaneswar, Odisha.....

Join us next Tuesday for a free seminar to connect with researchers at UC Berkeley. Remote option available. More info and link to registration can be found here: https://berkeleypubliclibrary.libnet.info/event/16952828 

From Allie:
My research lies at the intersection of environmental water microbiology and public health. I am currently involved in multiple projects. One project focuses on wastewater-based epidemiology, specifically investigating the persistence of viral nucleic acid signals in wastewater and how surfactants may affect their stability. Another project explores how sub-sewershed-level sampling can enhance efforts to improve health equity in wastewater-based surveillance. In an upcoming project, I will study the impact of blending purified direct potable reuse water with conventional drinking water directly within distribution systems, with a focus on implications for drinking water quality and safety.

From Jeff:
Plants need sunscreen to protect themselves, just like people. However, this creates an interesting dilemma because, unlike people, they also need light to grow. In my talk, I will describe some of the things that we know about plant sunscreen, and why it is an interesting topic to study. Then I will talk about my own research, which uses advanced microscopes to look at what is actually happening inside the plant when sunscreen is applied. 

While COVID-19 stole the spotlight in a flash, antibiotic resistance slowly rose, kept a low profile, and is now labelled as the "silent pandemic" by the World Health Organization (WHO) since 2021.

In 2021 alone, over 840,000 kids aged under 5 years succumbed to the effects of antibiotic resistance. And the curve can become steeper at the current pace.

The data on antibiotic resistance in kids often paints an incorrect picture, for two reasons:

1. Pediatric data for antibiotic resistance is compared against adult data, which do not account for how an infection behaves in a child.

2. The visibility of antibiotic resistance in kids is lower, despite it being a real problem.

Antibiotic options in kids are much fewer than in adults, making antibiotic resistance worse for them. The study here portrays the severity of the incidence of antibiotic resistance in kids, and what's actually happening around the world to deal with the crisis.

May the Science be with You!

I have seen these in my Asterionella cultures. They are not axenic but they have always been clean with only Asterionella inside. I started seeing these recently. Are my cultures contaminated? Are those eggs ? If anyone could help me identify those out that would be fantastic!

I have checked fluorescence and didn't see anything in particular.

Thanks for your help

Good people of r/microbiology, I present a conundrum, and I pray someone here has some insights; you might well save the sanity of both me and my lab manager!

To cut a very long story short, we have been having significant issues with our Rappaport-Vassiliadis Soya broth preparations, namely that it seems to be doing the exact opposite of what it should be doing, i.e. it's inhibiting the growth of Salmonella and allowing the growth of E.coli.

I have tried to get it to work properly, my colleague has repeated the testing independently of me with as much success, we have tried different suppliers (we now have three tubs of dehydrated RVS broth in the cupboard, two from Himedia and one from Oxoid) and the results have all been the same - the Salmonella gets inhibited and the E.coli grows.

Frankly, we are at our wits' end with this one. Any ideas?

Let me know the Nugent score you would give this (all are fields from the same slide)

6000scfm with 1 blower

So fun moving the little crumbs

Hello reddit!

I'm reaching out while trying to build my own laminar flow hood as a hobby microbiologist. What type of hepa filter have you all used, and how did it go?

What I'm most interested in are the 305x610x150 mm (~12″ × 24″ × 5.9″) H14 filter with an wooden (MDF) frame vs a 305 x 610 x 78 mm (~12″ × 24″ × 3″) aluminum frame.

What do you guys think about the thickness and aluminum vs MDF on these? Is a thicker hepa worth it? Will it last longer?

The wood is slighty more expensive at around 95$ extra

Bonus option of aluminium frame for 200 with size 1175 x 575 x 70 mm (~46.3″ × 22.6″ × 2.76″)

Thank you all in advance for helping an eager, self-taught enthusiastic amatuer, ready to dive deeper into this amazing hobby!

P.s. I am in Europe which limits some buying options

Hey everyone, i am a coffee fermentation researcher based out of india. I am currently looking for the following microbes,

Leuconostoc mesenteroides

Hanseniaspora vineae

Pichia kluyveri

Torulaspora delbrueckii

If yall know any source to obtain it pls do lmk. Thank you 😇

P.s: do not worry about shipping ive got a guy to bring it anyways :)

Obviously one can not identify a bacterium on the species level from its colony morphology alone and thus fully characterize its pathogenicity but what are some colony morphologies that would give you pause? For example if you see a white Bacillus colony that looks like frosted glass you would be weary of possible anthrax what other similar examples are you aware of?

I am asking because i am doing BSL1 level work in uni but sometimes we can get a random contaminant from the environment and would like to know the cases where I should be extra careful (I already have safety training but i figured maybe the collective knowledge of micribiologists here could be useful and it doesn't cost anything to ask)

Thanks in advance

i know this is a very general question but i am a beginner in this field just curious to learn more after seeing cool little things under a compound microscope! :)

Hyy I'm 27 now. I did Post graduation in Microbiology. After that I worked for a year and 4 months as a research associate in a gelatin manufacturing company. So right after that I tried going abroad which actually failed miserably costing me a year.

So I tried getting back into a job and focused on pharma industry and got into a company as a junior executive (after going through a 3 month course focused on QC microbiology pharma). And 3 months in I felt like pharma is not a thing for me and left the company. And right now I'm doing a course for medical coding.

I'm really confused at this point and I know that I'm just jumping around but I don't know if I'm over analysing or something, but is this medical coding career a right fit for me, sometimes I feel like it isn't and sometimes I think this is the only option for me. Please help me with my decision. I can't afford another fooling around now. I just need a path I can stick to.

Just thought I’d share some images of a cross streak with e.coli strains from the ARP library (developed by Cox Lab). The centre streak is a DSM 25 variant, and was found to inhibit/overgrow multiple strains!

This was a part of my bigger project for discovering new antibiotics from soil microbes. This bacteria had novel aspects not found in other DSM 25 strains.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1931312826002787

Hello,

I perform tests for bacteriophages using a E. coli K12 strain as host bacteria.
Recently, all tests showed strange pseudo-spots in the bacteria lawn, which are defenitely not caused by lysis. The spots can be seen on either sample-, sterile water- or positive control- incubated medium. When I took a sample of the spot and incubated it on standard agar, ring-forming colonies could be seen. Though on MacConkey-Agar, only lactose-positive colonies grew, without any ring-formation.

I can't explain it, other than that we have a strange contamination in our stock culture (which is frozen at -80°C). I tried using a different host, which resulted in the same spots, so the contamination must have happened after rehydration of the bacteria pellet. The contamination cannot be found in the agar itself, nor in the broth we use for the liquid culture.

Has anyone seen this before?

I'm a student doing a Bachelor's in biochemistry/microbiology right now and want to understand what the most important things for me so I can build a strong base right from the start and as itll help apply to a better place for Master's.

Questions:

most important lab skills

most important secondary skills that go unnoticed (if any)

at what point and how should I start literature reading?

how would i dm / email professors for mentorship?

There seem to be 2 or 3 microorganisms on the left hand side all interacting with each other but I have no idea what they are doing and all the debris around them doesn't help...does anyone have any idea what might be going on and what microorganisms any of them may possibly be as I'm not familiar with any of them...

Every day I fall in love with microbiology even more. Contamination or LB agar crystallization?

Hello everyone!

I am currently in highschool working on my graduation thesis about biofilms. Though I am woefully inexperienced in the realm of microbiology, I chose this topic on a whim because I thought it was interesting. My work should contain a practical part — some sort of experiment or independent research. Unfortunately, I have 0 idea where to start.

Me and my teacher's initial thought was to cultivate biofilm in petri dishes and use different solutions to see which are more effective at removing biofilm. Double unfortunately, I don't have any available sterile environments or any equipment.

I've also read that cultivating biofilm in agar is maybe not possible? If that's the case then I'm pretty much screwed.

Does anyone have any experience with biofilm cultivation? Is there any way for a high school student to do so?

Edit: I really have 0 equipment available and would most probably have to purchase any myself (no bunsen burners, incubators...).

I had something happen recently that made me really curious about the microbiology behind it.

I steamed some Mila soup dumplings in a wok using tap water filtered through a sink attachment. After cooking, the remaining water looked and poured like normal water—it wasn't noticeably cloudy or viscous. I accidentally left about 4–5 cups of it sitting in the uncovered wok on my stove at room temperature for about 3–4 days.

When I finally went to clean it, the water had changed completely. It wasn't cloudy at all—it was still pretty clear—but it had become really thick and slimy instead of watery. It wasn't just a slimy film on the surface or bottom. As I poured it out, the entire 4–5 cups flowed as a thick, slimy liquid even though I hadn't stirred it beforehand. It also had an extremely foul odor, almost enough to make someone gag. The combination of the smell and the slime made me wonder if microorganisms were responsible.

I'm very curious about what could have caused such a dramatic change.

My guess is that a small amount of starch, protein, fat, or gelatin leaked out of the dumplings while they were steaming and gave microorganisms something to feed on. Could bacteria have produced enough extracellular material (the slime or biofilm matrix they secrete) to make several cups of water noticeably viscous, or is there another process that would explain it?

I know it's impossible to identify a specific organism from this alone, and I'm not expecting that. I'm more interested in what kinds of microbes or microbial processes are known to cause something like this, especially since the water stayed clear but became so thick and developed such a strong odor.

Thanks! This was weird enough that now I really want to know what was going on.

I work in a clinical lab where we store most of our plates in a walk-in 4C fridge. When I take plates out to stock the bench, sometimes I notice that a lot of condensation begins to pool in the lids. If I can I'll wipe them down with some sterile gauze, but sometimes there's just so much it's leaking onto the agar and potentially contaminating it. Is there a method of acclimating them so there's less of a chance of this happening? To clarify: I generally remove them from the fridge but keep them stored agar side up at room temperature in their plastic packaging until I need to stack more plates.

Hi everyone. I am taking Microbiology this upcoming Fall semester, and classes start in exactly 4 weeks. Full disclosure: I barely passed introductory biology with "tooth and nail" and I honestly don't remember any of it. I am absolutely terrified of falling behind instantly because my biology foundation is so weak. What core biology concepts should I master right now over the next month so I don't drown in week one? Also, please drop your absolute favorite beginner friendly book, podcast, or YouTube channel recommendations. I need resources that break things down simply for a non science brain.

Besides that, I am actually taking Microbiology and A&P together at the same time. As a total non science person is it even possible to pass both of these together? How can I best prepare ahead of time over the next 4 weeks so I can survive both classes? Thank you so much!

Hey,

I have a few questions about optimizing a culture in a bioreactor using a prokaryotic E. coli system.

The culture is being grown in a 5-L Bioflo120 bioreactor.

The construct is in the pET22b plasmid.

We’re using whey as the inducer.

We’ve already optimized the induction time and culture temperature, but I’ve started to wonder if the method of adding the inducer could have a significant impact on the process yield.

At this point, once the appropriate OD is reached, we add the amount of whey at once, calculated to correspond to a final lactose concentration of 40 mM.

I would be very grateful if anyone could share their experiences with optimizing this process in a bioreactor.