Category Archives: Clinical and Medical Microbiology

Scratching the surface: how microbes adhere to worktops

Posted on June 5, 2017 by

Have you ever noticed when cleaning a sink or a saucepan that certain spots get tougher to clean over time, and the harder you scrub them, the worse it gets? This sometimes happens when we clean things with abrasive products … Continue reading →

Posted in Clinical and Medical Microbiology, Food Microbiology, Technology | Tagged | 12 Comments

Podcast: Does air pollution make bacteria more dangerous?

Posted on May 31, 2017 by

Air pollution is a big problem. It’s our single largest environmental health risk, and causes an eighth of all global deaths worldwide. We know that air pollution increases respiratory diseases and the risk of infections like pneumonia. But now, new … Continue reading →

Posted in Clinical and Medical Microbiology, Environmental Microbiology, Podcast | 3 Comments

Spotlight on Grants: Eliminating plasmids for antibiotic resistance

Posted on May 17, 2017 by

Each year, the Microbiology Society awards a number of Research Visit Grants that enable our members to work in another laboratory anywhere in the world. PhD student Alessandro Lazdins fom the University of Birmingham writes about his trip to Sydney earlier this … Continue reading →

Posted in Clinical and Medical Microbiology, Grants | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Investigating Lyme disease on the South Downs

Posted on April 6, 2017 by

The South Downs National Park is an area that stretches for 140 km along the South Coast of England, and is home to a huge diversity of plants and animals. Some of the smaller inhabitants of the park are ticks: … Continue reading →

Posted in Animal Microbiology, Clinical and Medical Microbiology, Emerging Diseases | Tagged | 2 Comments

This device uses a laser to rapidly detect bacteria

Posted on April 4, 2017 by

SLIC by name, slick by nature. That’s the title of a presentation later today by Dr Robert Hammond from the University of St Andrews. In it, he’ll be talking about a new technology for quickly detecting bacteria and their susceptibility to … Continue reading →

Posted in Clinical and Medical Microbiology, Technology | Leave a comment

Review: ‘Resistance’ on BBC Radio 4

Posted on March 3, 2017 by

Today, BBC Radio 4 broadcast the first episode of Resistance – a three-part drama series written by Val McDermid and developed through the ‘Experimental Stories’ collaboration between the BBC and the Wellcome Trust. Here, we post a mini-review of the … Continue reading →

Posted in Clinical and Medical Microbiology | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Podcast: Bacteria from the ancient city of Troy

Posted on February 28, 2017 by

Everyone knows the story of the Trojan horse. The Greeks, in a war against the Trojans, hid some soldiers inside a giant wooden horse and left it outside the city of Troy. Thinking that they’d won, the Trojans dragged the … Continue reading →

Posted in Clinical and Medical Microbiology, Podcast | Tagged | 1 Comment