Small Things Considered

Applied Molecular Microbiology at Dubrovnik

by Roberto 
If you are interest­ed in any sub­ject re­lated to small mo­le­cule na­tur­al pro­ducts of mi­cro­bi­al ori­gin, the "John In­nes/Rud­jer Boš­ko­vić Sum­mer School in Ap­plied Mo­le­cu­lar Mi­cro­bio­lo­gy" is for you. I know that course name is a mouth­ful so when I am de­scrib­ing the school to mi­cro­bio­lo­gists, I re­fer to it simp­ly as... Read more →

I → Y → II ?

by Christoph
Don't worry, STC won't switch to cu­nei­form without warning. What va­gue­ly re­sem­bles a chemi­cal for­mu­la or a cu­nei­form text is meant to keep the title as short as pos­sible. More verbose: I will take a clos­er look at Y-shap­ed bac­te­r­ia to see if their "ir­re­gu­lar" shape points to their mode of cell di­vi­sion... Read more →

The Krebs (Bi)Cycle

by Christoph
Today I'm tak­ing you on a short tour, a (bi)­cycle tour. Don't be alarmed, it won't be a long ride. And no pre­vi­ous fit­ness check! You can cycle di­rect­ly on your screen. A mi­ni­mum of brain ac­ti­vi­ty is ex­pect­ed though. You gues­sed it, it's about the Krebs cycle. More pre­cise­ly: The Krebs (Bi)­Cycle. Let's pedal! Read more →

In the Company of Bacteria: Amoebae

by Christoph  
In times long past, highly evolved eu­karyotes, for ex­ample bio­chemists, oc­ca­sio­nal­ly quip­ped that bac­ter­ia were noth­ing more than a bag of en­zymes. Well, from the per­spec­tive of bac­ter­ia, one could easi­ly re­turn the com­pli­ment: eu­kar­y­o­tes, for ex­ample single-cel­led amoe­bae, are little more than a... Read more →

Summer Courses in Microbiology

by Roberto
These days in New Eng­land – spe­ci­fi­cal­ly in Cam­bridge, where I am now – the air is crisp as the tem­pe­ra­tures are be­gin­ning to drop and the leaves are al­ready dis­play­ing mag­ni­fi­cent col­ors. Fall is in full swing, and sum­mer is a me­mo­ry. But this past sum­mer, once again, left me with the de­light­ful me­mo­ry... Read more →

Kitasatospora, a bacterium promoted to honorary amoeba

by Christoph  
A de­cade ago, Elio wound up a post on en­do­cy­to­sis by E. co­li with the bold re­mark: "If in­deed E. co­li is on­ly one pro­tein away from en­do­cy­to­sis, per­haps this work will com­pel us to cross en­do­cy­to­sis off the list of phy­sio­lo­gi­cal traits that are ex­clus­ive at­tri­bu­tes of the eu­kar­yo­tic cell plan." For sure, ex­pres­sing hu­man ca­veo­lin‑1 in E. co­li... Read more →

Nature's Drug Factories: Visualising the Invisible

by Munro Passmore
For ge­ne­ral au­dien­ces, science can of­ten seem im­pe­ne­trab­le to un­der­stand be­cause of its in­her­ent scale and com­plex­ity. This is par­ti­cu­lar­ly true in the field of na­tur­al pro­ducts – where we seek to un­der­stand the pro­ces­ses mi­cros­cop­ic or­gan­isms un­der­take to make mo­le­cules we la­ter use as... Read more →

Heavy-duty Traffic, Microscale

by Christoph  
Men­tion "fla­gel­la" and we mi­cro­bio­lo­gists in­stant­ly think of these in­gen­ious ap­pe­nda­ges that bac­te­ri­al cells use to pro­pel them­selves through fluids of va­ry­ing vis­co­si­ties (ar­chaea do this, too, with their ar­cha­el­la). We ra­re­ly think of them as an ac­ces­sory to trans­port car­go. Yes "car­go," you read cor­rect­ly, but may­be you re­mem­ber... Read more →

Pictures Considered #57: Coloring a Cell

by Christoph  
Our ability to visual­ly per­ceive and dis­cri­mi­nate is al­ways sligh­ly over­whelmed by black-and-white ima­ges. Es­pe­cial­ly, of course, when the ob­jects de­pict­ed are out­side our trained, fa­mil­iar size spec­trum, such as bac­te­ri­al cells and their in­nards. Take for ex­ample Fi­gure 1, the cryo-ET image of a ti­ny... Read more →

Diazomania I ─ A Bird's-Eye View of the Nitrogen Cycle

by Roberto  
Here's a good way to get friends or re­la­tiv­es in­ter­est­ed in mi­cro­bio­lo­gy – if they aren't al­ready. Tell them to take a deep breath and to let it out. Then ask them these ques­tions: "Mostly, what went into your lungs?", and "What hap­pened to it while in your lungs?" Re­gard­less of... Read more →