Viruses, Bacteria and Fungi in the Built Environment : Designing Healthy Indoor Environments

Viruses, Bacteria and Fungi in the Built Environment: Designing Healthy Indoor Environments opens with a brief introduction to viruses, bacteria and fungi in the built environment and discusses their impact on human health. Sections discuss the microbiology of building materials, the airborne transmission of viruses and bacteria in the built environment, and plumbing-associated microbiome. As the first book on this important area to be written in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, this work will be a valuable reference resource for researchers, civil engineers, architects, postgraduate students, contractors and other professionals working and interested in the field of the built environment.

Elements of building design, including choice of materials, ventilation and plumbing can have important implications for the microbiology of a building, and consequently, the health of the building's occupants. This important new reference work explains the microbiology of buildings and disease control in the built environment to those who design and implement new construction and renovate.

• Provides an essential guide on the microbiology of buildings, covering bacteria, fungi and viruses on surfaces, in air and in water
• Comprehensively examines how humidity influences fungal growth in several building materials
• Includes important information about the airborne transmission of infectious agents
• Addresses ventilation design to improve human health
• Presents the first book on disease control in buildings since the COVID-19 pandemic

Dr. F. Pacheco Torgal is a Principal Investigator at the University of Minho in Portugal. He holds the title of Counsellor at the Portuguese Engineers Association. He is a member of the editorial boards for nine international journals. Over the last 10 years he has participated in the research decision for more than 460 papers and has also acted as a Foreign Expert on the evaluation of 22 PhD thesis. Over the last 10 years he has also been a Member of the Scientific Committees for more than 60 conferences, most of them held in Asian countries. He is also a grant assessor for several scientific institutions in 15 countries, including the UK, US, Netherlands, China, France, Australia, Kazakhstan, Belgium, Spain, Czech Republic, Chile, Saudi Arabia, UA. Emirates, Croatia, Poland, and the EU Commission. In the last 10 years, he reviewed more than 70 research projects.

Dr. Volodymyr Ivanov has more than 40 years of teaching and research experience on Environmental, Industrial, and Construction Microbiology and Biotechnology in the universities of Europe, Asia, and USA. He has authored 200 papers, patents, book chapters and 8 monographs. His textbook “Environmental Microbiology for Engineers”, Francis & Taylor, 1st (2010) and 2nd (2015) editions, has been adopted for graduate and post-graduate courses in many universities. His research experience includes the supervision and participation in numerous projects on biotechnologies with biofilms and biogranules, microbial transformations of iron, biocementation, bioclogging, bioremediation of soil, and microbiological monitoring of water quality.

Dr Falkinham is a professor of microbiology in the Department of Biological Sciences at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. His research interests include the epidemiology of Mycobacterium avium, metal oxidation and reduction in biofilms and predatory bacteria ecology