The new Academy FAQ Report on Microbes of the Built Environment is now available.  This report was written by the American Academy of Microbiology and is a summary of a full day discussion of  questions regarding the role of “complex microbial ecosystems found in built environments.”

I was fortunate to be a participant in the panel, where we discussed what we know, what we don’t know and what we want to know next.  Here are the questions that are discussed:

1. what are built environments and why are these ecosystems important to study?
2. What microbes are found in built environments?
3. How does microbial metabolism affect the chemistry of the built environments?
4. How do microbes in the built environment affect human health?
5. Is there such a thing as a healthy indoor microbiome?
6. How do we foster collaborations among scientists who study the built environment using different paradigms?
7. Will studying microbiology of the built environments change the ways we design, build, operate, occupy, and clean our indoor spaces?

Check it out.  And the references at the end of the report are a nice summary of the literature.