2018 Microbiology of the Built Environment Gordon Research Conference

Gordon Research Conferences, East Greenwich RI

Investigators

Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY The majority of inhalation, contact, and ingestion exposures to pathogens, allergens, and beneficial microbes occur inside buildings, where American's spend the majority of their time. The field of building microbiology seeks to understand how building design, occupancy, and operation impact human exposure to microbes and ultimately how these microbial exposures impact wellbeing. This field is populated by microbiologists, microbial ecologists, immunologists, physicians, epidemiologists, engineers, and architects. A single conference venue is needed to exchange research results, build collaborations from researchers in disparate fields, and to foster this interdisciplinary community of researchers. This proposal is written in support of the July 2018 inaugural Gordon Research Conference (GRC) on the Microbiology of the Built Environment. The conference will be hosted by the University of New England in Biddeford, ME. Gordon Research Conferences are prestigious international scientific meetings operated and partly funded by the non-profit organization of the same name. The Microbiology of the Built Environment Conference was added to the list of GRC's in 2017. Specific aims include the following: (1) host a scientific conference on the frontiers of microbiology, buildings, and health and, (2) indefinitely extend, foster and grow the emerging medical, scientific and engineering community that has assembled to study microbes and human health in buildings. The major innovation of this conference is to focus on human health. In recent years, microbial ecology, enabled by high throughput DNA sequencing has dominated much of the field. This first GRC pushes health to the forefront, with a theme of ?Integrating Human Health with the Building Microbiome?. At least 75% of all invited talks will focus on health in the built environment, with the remainder addressing novel topics on ecology and building engineering. The major outcomes of this research include the establishment of a long-term, high impact venue to exchange knowledge on building microbiology and health, as well as the development of a diverse and multidisciplinary research community centered on human health, microbial exposures and building design/operation.