Meet The Microbiologist - The Scientists Behind The Microbiology

Bill Jacobs talks about developing mycobacterial genetic tools and using them to discover ways to shorten TB treatment. He also talks about the SEA-PHAGES program that allows high-school students to participate in phage discovery. Host: Julie Wolf Subscribe (free) on iPhone, Android, RSS, or by email. You can also listen on your mobile device with the ASM Podcast app. Julie's biggest takeaways: The challenges of working with an easily aerosolized bacterium are aided by complementary studies on a noninfectious relative. M. smegmatus doesn’t colonize mammals and grows slower, giving researchers the opportunity to acclimate themselves to working with mycobacterial cultures. Jacobs was the first scientist to introduce DNA into M. tuberculosis using a phasmid - part plasmid, part mycobacterial phage. The first phage came from Jacobs’ dirt yard in the Bronx, so he named it BxB1 for the Bronx Bomber. Another phage, TM4, became the workhorse phasmid when Jacobs cloned an E. coli cosmid sequence into a nonessent