TEDxPortland invited the BioBE Center to speak about indoor ecology and our most recent research at the Lillis Business Complex. This event was extraordinary. Featured speakers included architect Gene Sandoval who designed the award winning John E. Jacqua Academic Center at the University of Oregon and 11-year old skateboarder Gavin Davison who has a vision to design the world’s most awesome indoor skateboard park in Portland, Oregon. Sustainable Business Oregon wrote up a thoughtful article about the BioBE Center’s mission.
Nike supported the meeting in many ways, including giving speakers shoes with insoles that featured the meeting’s theme: Unchartered Territory.
BioBE Center members Jessica Green and Keith Herkert were granted Front-Line Scholarships to attend the TEDMED conference from April 10-13. We made many new connections with some amazing and inspiring individuals. More innovative ideas are on the horizon for BioBE thanks to our time at TEDMED.
The BioBE Center is working with the Autodesk Dasher Project to visualize microbiological data in the built environment. Go here for a brief demo of Jessica Green interfacing with Project Dasher at TED2012.
In the February 10 issue of Science, reporter Courtney Humphries profiles the growing community of scientists investigating the built environment microbiome. The article features Sloan Foundation Program Officer Paula Olsiewski, BioBE Director Jessica Green, and fellow Sloan grantees as they weigh in on the need to understand indoor ecology and discuss exciting new work that is propelling the emerging field forward.
The BioBE center’s recent paper is among The ISME Journal’s top 10 most downloaded papers of the past 30 days. It is exciting to see such broad interest in the intersection of architecture and biology!
As mentioned a few weeks ago, high school sophomore Caitlin Smith presented her study of domestic microbes at the Dallastown science fair on January 28. Caitlin’s work earned her a First Place ranking and advanced her to the county science fair next month. Congratulations Caitlin, and good luck!
The BioBE Center’s inaugural article was published today in The ISME Journal (available online via Open Access). In it, Kembel et al. report the influence of architectural design on airborne microbial communities in a Portland-area hospital. As compared to outdoor air, the authors find that indoor air harbors less microbial diversity and a higher proportion of potentially pathogenic bacteria. The structure and composition of airborne microbial communities was correlated to a range of building attributes, suggesting that indoor microbiomes can be managed by judiciously manipulating building design and operation. Taken together, these results make the case for evidence-based architectural design informed by a solid understanding of indoor microbial ecology.
Once again, you can see Jessica Green discuss this work at TedGlobal 2011 here.
Biodiversity of the “mute” button (credit: C. Smith)
The BioBE Center has recently had the pleasure of collaborating with high school sophomore Caitlin Smith on her science fair project. Caitlin, a student at Dallastown Area High School in Dallastown PA, contacted the Center last fall to develop a project that fuses Caitlin’s interest in buildings and biology (topics close to our own hearts). Since then Caitlin has worked with BioBE members to develop a protocol for examining the diversity and density of indoor microbes in a number of household environments including tabletops, kitchen sinks, doorknobs, and television remotes. Caitlin has impressed us with her professionalism and scientific ambition, and we wish her the best of luck at the science fair on January 28! Stay tuned for photos and updates in the coming weeks.
The Pioneer Program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation invited the BioBE Center to TEDMED 2011 to explore TEDMED’s Twenty Great Challenges of Health and Medicine. BioBE has been assigned to gather information during the conference from TEDMED attendees about Challenge #10: Stopping hospital infections – why is this problem so hard?
A highlight of the meeting included an inspired talk by Michael Graves on the design of patient rooms in health care facilities. Having spent an extraordinary amount of time in health care facilities himself, Michael understands the value of designing spaces with the patient in mind. He noted that as technology gets bigger, the patient room is getting smaller. His work addresses how to design spaces and furniture that will reduce the probability of infection and increase the feeling of being at home.
BioBE center member Terry Blomquist presented our work at the 2011 Oregon BEST Fest: “The Pacific Northwest’s premier expo and networking event for renewable energy and sustainable built environment research, development, and commercialization.” The conference served as a great opportunity to meet other sustainability focused researchers and possible collaborators. Click here to see the poster we presented.