Image Gallery: Microbes For Good

Tangled Bank Studios
I Contain Multitudes
2 min readApr 10, 2018
A computer rendering of insulin. Escherichia coli bacteria are genetically engineered to produce human insulin, the need for which is on the rise as diabetes becomes more common. The vast majority of insulin marketed today is produced by genetically engineered E. coli.
A mosquito next to her egg raft. Mosquitoes have been called the deadliest animal in the world, being responsible for millions of deaths every year by transmitting microbial diseases to humans through their bite. Now, scientists have utilized a different group of microbes for good: Wolbachia. Wolbachia is a type of bacteria, some of which have been found to limit the ability of mosquitoes to spread viral diseases like dengue and Zika.
A colored scanning electron microscope image of many Saccharomyces cerevisiae, or brewer’s yeast, at ~3,000× magnification. This single-celled fungus ferments sugar, producing alcohol and carbon dioxide in the process. It is used in the production of beer, wine and bread.
The rind of an aged blue cheese. Cheese rinds form during the aging process and are a microbial ecosystem containing fungi, bacteria and even microscopic animals known as cheese mites. The rind that forms will differ depending on the types of microbes present and even contribute to the flavor profile of the cheese. Photo by Scott Chimileski.
A volunteer prepares to clean oil from the feathers of a heavily coated Canada goose at the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in Marshall, Michigan. Microbes such as Alcanivorax borkumensis have evolved the ability to degrade oil, and scientists are looking to exploit this ability to mitigate oil spills. Photo by US EPA.
At an oil spill on the Kalamazoo River near Battle Creek, Michigan, cleanup crews work in a dam containment area. Bacteria such as Alcanivorax and Marinobacter species are known to naturally degrade oil. They have been found to increase in population after oil spills, thriving on the hydrocarbons in the petroleum. Photo by US EPA.

I Contain Multitudes is a multi-part video series dedicated to exploring the wonderful, hidden world of the microbiome.

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Tangled Bank Studios
I Contain Multitudes

Tangled Bank Studios is a science documentary production company established in 2012 and funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute @tangledbankHHMI