Matters Microbial #131: What Cystic Fibrosis Reveals About Hidden Microbial Lives June 3, 2026
Today Dr. Sam Brown, Professor of Biological Sciences at Georgia Tech University, joins the quality quorum today to discuss the social lives of bacterial pathogens. He will also discuss VERY recent research from his lab group exploring the specialist/generalist problem in Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and thoughts on cryptic convergent specialization!
Host: Mark O. Martin
Guest: Sam Brown
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Links for this episode
- An overview of behavioral ecology.
- An article describing evolutionary trade offs and game theory.
- A video describing Tinbergen's "Four Whys" involving behavioral ecology.
- A wonderful essay by Carl Zimmer relating lake ecology and microbial ecology in humans.
- A Pseudomonas plush toy from Giant Microbes.
- The Pseudomonas contaminated eyedrops story told by Dr. Brown, as summarized by the CDC.
- An essay about sociomicrobiology.
- An overview of quorum sensing.
- An overview of biofilms.
- An article describing specialization versus generalism in ecology.
- A description of a "confusion matrix" in data analysis.
- A somewhat dated overview of PCA (principle component analysis).
- The article about convergent cryptic specialization under discussion today on this podcast from Dr. Brown's research group (first author Mehlferber).
- A VERY interesting article from Dr. Brown's research team describing eco-evolutionary aspects of polymicrobial infections.
- Dr. Brown's faculty website.
- Dr. Brown's laboratory group website.
Intro music is by Reber Clark
Send your questions and comments to mattersmicrobial@gmail.com
