What’s my microbe moment – the moment I realized that microbes were going to change my life?
A few months ago, the Microbigals blog reached out to me about a podcast episode they were planning, one that celebrates the diverse perspectives amongst microbiology science communicators: our favorite moments with microbes, how we got into microbiology, and the coolest microbiology experiences we’ve encountered.
Now I’m excited to share with you the podcast episode with the microbe moments from the many bloggers, sci artists, writers, and podcasters that have come across microbes each in their own unique way.
Here’s the podcast episode and a transcript below of my microbe moment.
My microbe moment [transcript]
What is my microbe moment? I’ve been enamoured with microbiology for the longest time that it’s hard to define the exact occasion that I’d call my microbe moment. Microbes are always at the top of my mind. And it’s not hard for that to happen because microbes are everywhere.
Here’s one of my first memories of working with microbes.
My first “real” encounter with microbes in the lab was in my junior year of high school when I took my first microbiology class. We mixed the growth media in the classroom and since we didn’t have an autoclave, my teacher sterilized it using a pressure cooker as we did other coursework. Still to this day, I distinctly remember my teacher picking up the giant steaming pressure cooker and running it over to the sink to cool it down. Once the agar cooled, we poured the plates and in the next class, we were greeted with the cooled smooth agar surface used to grow bacteria. We were sent on our way around the school to see what we could grow on them.
Since this brush with microbes, I’ve worked with Vibrio cholerae as an undergrad, studied the Helicobacter pylori flagellum in graduate school, and worked to identify new antimicrobials with the help of robots. Fortunately in all these experiences, I didn’t have to run across the room with a steaming hot pressure cooker.
Then my relationship with microbes shifted. I pivoted to science communication and left the world of lab work, though I still very much love microbiology. It was that time, about five years ago, when I started a microbiology blog called The Microbial Menagerie as a celebration of the many ways microbes touch our lives, and I had to start with my favorite topics at the time: food microbiology and the microbiome. Now the blog has expanded to cover much more: microbes in many environments, the lives of microbiologists, and I’ve even written poems about different microbes.
While now I don’t grow or study microbes in the lab, I still find ways to incorporate microbes into my life (well, let’s face it, we all do even if we don’t realize it). In my kitchen, I’ve grown cultures of sourdough, yogurt, kombucha, and kefir. Recently, I began making time lapse videos of my sourdough starter bubbling away, testing out how different combinations of flour changes how the starter grows. It’s like a science experiment, I tell myself. Only you get to eat it too!
