Host: Marc Pelletier Guest: Dr. Edward F. Delong, Professor, Division of Biological Engineering & Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at MIT

Our guest, Dr. Ed Delong, studies complex microbial communities in the Pacific ocean off the coast of Hawaii. In our discussion, he explains how genomics not only reveals important details on the nature of these marine microbes, but can also uncover genetic, biochemical, and even metabolic information with great potential for the development of new technologies, providing novel building blocks for synthetic biologists or genetic engineers. While seeking a better understanding of life in the oceans, Dr. Delong is extending our knowledge of the living world and discovering new genes in a way that is not unlike combing the tropical rainforests for new species.

I would like to point out that we record these netcasts using Skype, and the bandwidth at MIT is either pretty slim, or heavily used. So, at one point we switch over to the phone lines, which actually worked pretty well.

As mentioned, Genbank can be accessed here

Thanks to Cachefly for providing the bandwidth for this podcast.

And also thanks to the Band Gunther from Cyclone Records for the permission to use their song Wrecking Ball as a theme for this episode of FiB!