University of Oregon
To provide renewed support to the Biology and the Built Environment Center
This grant provides two years of continued support to the University of Oregon’s Biology and the Built Environment Center (BioBE). Led by microbiologist Jessica Green and architect GZ Brown and founded with the assistance of a 2010 Sloan Foundation grant, the BioBE Center aims to develop a predictive science of the built environment microbiome by bringing together a multidisciplinary research team of microbiologists, engineers, architects, and building experts. Over the next two years, Center researchers will launch a number of research projects that attempt to expand our understanding of how ventilation, structure, and daylight influence the composition and function of indoor microbial communities. Specific topics to be studied include how antimicrobial compounds influence the indoor microbiome and how that influence is mediated by building design, how restricting exchange with outside air affects community composition indoors, and whether earlier findings suggesting that design influences the microbial dust communities are generalizable across building types. In addition to supporting the Center’s research, additional grant funds support the Center’s training and outreach activities designed to bring new talent into the field and disseminate research results widely among the scholarly community and public.