Microbial Farming by Alex G.

 When I was a kid I loved magic, the mixing of potions and the endless combinations of spells fascinated me, so it was not a surprise growing up I have gravitated towards the closest thing to magic and quickly pursued a career in science. Even now, as a university student, I still find myself peeking behind the curtains of biology magical and have gained an even greater appreciation and love for its intricacies. However, over my time working with the Tiny Earth Project rather than the typical tropes people envision when they hear scientists, I felt more akin to a farmer learning about and caring for their livestock.

A major reason for this dynamic is the sensitive and finicky nature of microbes, a large hurdle we had to consider and learn to manage while working with soil microbes. We especially focused on considering why despite advances in genomic data, which have led to improved understanding of microbial life and its diversity, it is contrasted by the inability to cultivate many novel lineages (Lewis et al., 2021). In our pursuit of antibiotic producers, this limitation extended to the difficult nature of microbial gene expression being tightly controlled and dependent on complex microbial and ecological interactions (Mohamed et al., 2021). To microbes’ credit, their nature is what allows them to adapt and thrive in a wide variety of environments, it also means we might not isolate a antibiotic producer given our media and other present isolates (Tanaka et al., 2014). And even after plenty of screening when we were finally able to isolate a few confirmed producers, they were still strangers that depended on us to characterize them physically, chemically and genomically over a period of weeks.

While my professor, Dr. G, joked there might be some tears shed when we tossed our microbes, it is not surprising I grew attached to the tiny creatures I cared for and got to know. As an artist, I wanted to share my experience as a scientist with the Tiny Earth Project in a fun way with a touch of the magic I felt it deserved to inspire others to change the way they look at dirt and its inhabitants. There are also plenty of small easter eggs for microbiologists to enjoy as well!