Mapping the microbe jungle on mass transit
Map showing distribution of viral contigs.
A Â鶹Ãâ·Ñ°æÏÂÔØ team is part of a major international effort to sample surfaces and the air on mass transit vehicles.
Two major international journals have published articles on the research, which included teams from Â鶹Ãâ·Ñ°æÏÂÔØBoulder engineering gathering samples on RTD light rail cars and at stations to document their public microbiological signatures.
Professor Mark Hernandez’s laboratory is a founding member of the international consortium that executed the sampling campaign. Marina Nieto-Caballero, an environmental engineering PhD student in Hernandez's lab who graduated in May, led the Â鶹Ãâ·Ñ°æÏÂÔØBoulder student teams through the efforts over the last few years.
The program was featured in a recent article in the New York Times:
Journal links:
- Danko, D., Bezdan, D., Afshin, E., the International MetaSUB consortium with Hernandez, M. and Nieto-Caballero, M., (2021), , Cell
- Leung, M., Tong, Q.; Bøifot, B.; Bezdan, D.; Daniel J. Butler, D. Danko, D., Gohli, J., Green, D., Hernandez, M., Nieto-Caballero, M., et al., (2021), , Microbiome