TWiM focuses on recent foodborne outbreaks of bacterial infections, and how nanopore sequencing technology can be used to identify pathogenic microbes and antimicrobial resistance genes in food products.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Michael Schmidt, Petra Levin and Michele Swanson.

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• Foodborne outbreaks (CDC)
• Race to nourish a warming world (Gates Foundation)
• Nanopore sequencing of foods (Food Microbiol)
• How is Oxford Nanopore used? (YouTube)
• Introduction to Nanopore sequencing (YouTube)
• Methods for detecting foodborne pathogens (Appl Micro Biotech)
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Send your microbiology questions and comments (email or recorded audio) to [email protected]

TWiM travels to the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases to learn how research conducted at USAMRIID leads to vaccines, drugs, diagnostics, and training programs that protect both warfighters and civilians.

Hosts: Michael Schmidt, Petra Levin and Michele Swanson. Guests: Norman Kreiselmeir, Christopher K Coat, Keersten Ricks, and Eric Nguyen Links for this episode:

• U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases
• Threading the NEIDL (TWiV 200)
• Unintentional importation of B. pseudomallei into US (Emerg Inf Dis)

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• Engineering the cow for less methane emissions (WaPo)
• Precision microbiome editing (Audacious Project)
• Giant viruses carry antibiotic resistance genes (Nat Commun)
• Take the TWiM Listener survey!

Send your microbiology questions and comments (email or recorded audio) to [email protected]

TWiM explains a project to engineer the cow microbiome to reduce emissions of methane, and the finding of antibiotic resistance genes in the genomes of giant viruses.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Michael Schmidt, Petra Levin and Michele Swanson.

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• Engineering the cow for less methane emissions (WaPo)
• Precision microbiome editing (Audacious Project)
• Giant viruses carry antibiotic resistance genes (Nat Commun)
• Take the TWiM Listener survey!

Send your microbiology questions and comments (email or recorded audio) to [email protected]

TWiM explains how bacterial community structure can be used to predict athletic performance in racehorses, and the idea that a tiny fraction of all species forms most of Nature.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Michael Schmidt, Petra Levin and Mark O. Martin.

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• Microbiome picks a winner (Sci Rep)
• Picking a Winner by Reading the Form
• Hen’s Teeth and Horse’s Toes by Stephen Jay Gould
• How much does it cost to breed a horse?
• Date of birth and purchase price as foals or yearlings and race performance
• Rarity as a sticky state (PNAS)
• How many species on Earth? (PLoS Biol)
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TWiM explains unique modifications in the energy conservation pathways linked to methanogenesis in an Archaeon, and mechanisms of white nose fungal invasion of cells from the Little Brown Bat.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Michael Schmidt, Petra Levin and Michele Swanson.

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• Methyl-reducing methanogenesis (Nature)
• Pathogenic strategies of Pseudogymnoascus destructans (Science)
• Adaptive fungal invasion of bat cells (Science)
• Little brown bat (Critter Catalog)
• Nature Notes: Little Brown Bat (Harpswell)
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TWiM describes experiments to explore gut microbiota signatures of vulnerability to food addiction in mice and humans, and how a phage tail-like protein suppresses competitors in populations of bacteria of plants.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Michael Schmidt, Petra Levin and Michele Swanson.

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• Gut microbiota and food addiction (Probiotics)
• Blautia may have probiotic properties (Gut Microbes)
• Blautia wexlerae ameliorates obesity and type 2 diabetes (Nat Commun)
• Phage tail–like bacteriocin suppresses competitors (Science)
• What is a bacteriocin? (Front Micro)
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TWiM explores evolution and host adaptation of Pseudomonas infections of plants, and the impact of COVID-19 on ESBL-producing E. coli on urinary tract and blood infections.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello and Michael Schmidt.

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• Evolution and host adaptation of Pseudomonas (Science)
• Type III secretion system, infection by injection (Nat Comm)
• Demographic inference with skyline plots (Peer J)
• Skyline plots (Taming the Beast)
• Panaroo, a bacterial genome analysis pipeline (Wellcome Sanger Inst)
• Impact of COVID-19 on ESBL-producing E. coli infections (Antimicro Resist Inf Control)
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Music used on TWiM is composed and performed by Ronald Jenkees and used with permission.

Send your microbiology questions and comments (email or recorded audio) to [email protected]

TWiM explores the deep-dwelling microbes that sculpt our planet, and the use of microbes in bioelectronics to manage inflammation.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Michael Schmidt, Petra Levin and Michele Swanson.

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• Deep-dwelling microbes that sculpt our planet (NY Times)
• Living bioelectronics resolve inflammation (Science)
• Active biointegrated living electronics for managing inflammation (Science)
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From ASM Microbe in Atlanta, Georgia, Arturo joins TWiM to reveal the threats that fungi pose to human health, including the notorious Candida auris and many more and how committed experts are researching ways to save us and our food supplies.

Hosts: Michael Schmidt, Mark O. Martin

Guest: Arturo Casadevall

Watch this episode: https://youtu.be/nKJe5xNUocU

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• Disaster mycology (Biomedica)
• Emergence of C. auris (mBio)
• What if fungi win? (JHU Press)
• Thinking about Science: Good Science, Bad Science, and How to Make It Better (Amazon)
• Recorded at ASM Microbe 2024 in Atlanta, Georgia. Join us at the next ASM Microbe by visiting us at asm.org/microbe
• Matters Microbial
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Music used on TWiM is composed and performed by Ronald Jenkees and used with permission.

Send your microbiology questions and comments (email or recorded audio) to [email protected]

TWiM explains a new mechanism for preventing lysogeny through temperate phage-antibiotic synergy, and Salmonella expansion in the murine gut dependency on aspartate derived from reactive oxygen species-mediated microbiota lysis.

Hosts: Michael Schmidt, Petra Levin and Michele Swanson.

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• Temperate phage-antibiotic synergy (mBio)
• Salmonella expansion dependent on aspartate (Cell Host Micr)
• Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis (Wiki)
• A Genetic Switch by Mark Ptashne
• Lysis timing and bacteriophage fitness (Genetics)
• HK97 capsid assembly (Ad Exp Med Biol)
• Mode of action of fluoroquinolones (Drugs)
• Salmonella a foodborne pathogen (CDC)
• Freeman Hrabowski Scholars Program (HHMI)
• Sam Kaplan - 30 years of Microbiology (McGovern Medical School)
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TWiM explores how climate change may be increasing our risks to infectious disease and then how the Odyssey literally comes alive in our microbial world but fear not, unlike the Trojans, the bacteria are fighting back and have developed resistance to this novel class of newly developed antimicrobials.   

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Links for this episode:

• Environmental changes fueling diseases (NY Times)
• Global change drivers and risk of infectious diseases (Nature)
• First reported cefiderocol-resistant E. coli in Canada (Clin Micro)
• E. coli cells explode (YouTube)

Music used on TWiM is composed and performed by Ronald Jenkees and used with permission.

Send your microbiology questions and comments to [email protected]