Venkat_JPL_surface
sampling of clean room floor at JPL for bacterial contamination The built environment, particularly clean rooms, have very low amounts of microbial biomass making traditional microbiome experiments difficult. Low biomass microbiome work is difficult due to back round contaminants and noise which is often introduced during physical sampling, DNA extraction, PCR or library prep, and finally sequencing. For this study, I have evaluated DNA extraction methods from both single tube kits and robotic high throughput methods as recommended from the EMP microbiome protocols. I will then use the best kit for detection ability and process 115 samples from the JPL-SAF aircraft assembly floor and determine which types of microbes are present and their spatial structure within the facility.