Microbial Insights, Inc.

11/19/2025

Why Monitoring Microbes Over Time Matters

A single sample is just a snapshot, but microbial communities are dynamic.

Seasonal changes, system adjustments, or new inputs can shift microbial populations dramatically over time. That’s why trend monitoring is essential for accurate interpretation and long-term management.

Microbial Insights provides consistent, high-quality microbial data that helps track site progression and verify sustainable outcomes.

📌Real insight comes not from one test, but from being proactive and observing.

11/17/2025

Groundwater Monitoring: A World of Opportunity

💧 Common Problem: Long-term monitoring of contaminated groundwater requires reliable and cost-effective tools to ensure consistent data quality.

💡 Where We Come In: By leveraging unused samples and advanced testing, we reduce costs and provide high-quality insights into groundwater conditions.

🛠️ What We Offer: Bio-Trap® samplers and QuantArray® are a standard third line of evidence providing comprehensive monitoring data for informed decision-making and regulatory compliance.

11/13/2025

Not all degradation is created equal.

Chlorinated solvent cleanup depends on a precise sequence of microbial reactions with each step carried out by specific organisms with the right environmental conditions. Missing even one microbial group can halt the process.

Using CENSUS® qPCR and QuantArray® platforms, Microbial Insights identifies and quantifies the key genes involved in each step of reductive dechlorination.

🦠When you know which microbes are active and what pathways are functioning, you can target the limiting factors and bring the site to closure faster and with confidence.

11/11/2025

Today, we pause to honor those who have served our country with courage and dedication. At Microbial Insights, we deeply value the discipline, commitment, and sense of purpose that veterans embody. Qualities that inspire excellence in science, innovation, and service every day.

To all who have served and continue to serve, thank you.

11/05/2025

Healthy soils depend on more than nutrient content, they rely on thriving, balanced microbial communities to make these nutrients available.

Microbes drive essential soil functions such as nitrogen fixation, organic matter breakdown, and disease suppression. Yet, changes in management practices, fertilizers, or environmental stress can disrupt this balance, impacting crop productivity and resilience.

At Microbial Insights, we help growers and researchers measure the unseen with Molecular Biological Tools (MBTs) that characterize soil microbial communities. From CENSUS® qPCR quantification of functional groups to Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) for comprehensive community profiling, our data provide actionable insight into how management decisions affect soil biology.

📌Sustainable agriculture starts where you can’t see it; in the microbes that sustain the soil.

11/03/2025

Every site tells a story, and microbes are the authors.

Just like fingerprints, microbial communities are unique to each location, shaped by site history, contaminant type, geochemistry, and treatment approach. Even two seemingly similar sites can host completely different microbial populations and pathways.

At Microbial Insights, we use tools to uncover this microbial “fingerprint.” The data left behind by microbes offers powerful clues about degradation potential, treatment performance, and long-term stability.

When you understand your site’s microbial identity, you can design strategies that work with biology, not against it.

10/31/2025

Who you gonna call when contamination lingers?

Microbial Insights!

Our Bio-Trap® samplers quietly capture the microbial activity happening beneath the surface, revealing the real story of biodegradation potential over time. No tricks here, just clear, actionable data powered by tools like CENSUS® qPCR, QuantArray®, and Next Generation Sequencing.

Happy Halloween!

10/27/2025

Environmental remediation is undergoing a powerful transformation and so is our ability to harness the microbial forces that drive it!

Don’t miss the latest column, packed with FAQs for professionals at every experience level. Craig Divine, Shandra Justicia-Leon, Dora Taggart, and Sam Rosolina combine their expertise to show how molecular data is being transformed into real-world impact.
https://doi.org/10.1111/gwmr.70025

Traditional culture-based methods once offered only a glimpse into the subsurface world. But today, Molecular Biological Tools (MBTs) like qPCR, metagenomics, and stable isotope analysis are revolutionizing how we explore and understand microbial communities. We’re no longer just identifying who’s there. We’re revealing what they’re doing and how they’re actively shaping remediation outcomes.

These insights are more than just data, they’re actionable intelligence. Practitioners can now make smarter, faster, and more confident decisions to optimize treatment strategies and site management.

Click on the article title to read more.

10/23/2025

Coming up on Monday!

Dora Taggart, will be speaking at the Disaster Risk and Readiness Seminar series.

📌 Hosted by the University of Tennessee, Knoxville
🗓️ October 27th.

Her talk, “Understanding the Environmental Microbiome: Mitigating Environmental Recovery Through Nature's Smallest Engineers,” explores how microbial communities play a vital role in ecosystem health and disaster recovery.

Come attend this in-person event!
For more details ⬇️

10/21/2025

When water quality issues arise, the source isn’t always clear.

Traditional chemical and indicator tests can confirm contamination but are unable to pinpoint where it originated. That’s where Microbial Source Tracking (MST) comes in using our CENSUS® qPCR platform.

Using DNA-based methods, CENSUS® identifies host-specific microbial markers, allowing utilities to distinguish between human, agricultural, or wildlife sources of contamination. This level of precision helps target corrective actions, protect public health, and prevent costly missteps.

At Microbial Insights, we’ve applied our MST assays to complex systems where point-in-time sampling alone couldn’t resolve the cause. Our data provides the clarity needed to move from uncertainty to confident management decisions.

🧬When the source matters, CENSUS® qPCR provides the evidence.

10/15/2025

Site contamination doesn’t have to be scary. 👻

With the right data, even the most complex sites can be understood and managed. Microbial Insights uses advanced Molecular Biological Tools (MBTs) to uncover what’s really happening below the surface, helping you identify root causes, track contaminant degradation, and design more effective cleanup strategies.

Turn uncertainty into insight with Microbial Insights.

10/13/2025

Your Partner in Time: MI’s DNA Archive

Don’t just think of your work with MI as discreet data points – sample submission, analysis, results, repeat – but instead as a continuous spectrum of opportunity.

With archived DNA, samples submitted over time from a site can be revisited to collect new data and exponentiate your understanding of your site and continuously adapt to new information.