Category Archives: Clinical and Medical Microbiology

Focused Meeting: Microbes and Mucosal Surfaces

Posted on May 24, 2018 by

On 21-22 June, the Microbiology Society Focused Meeting on Microbes and Mucosal Surfaces will be held at University College Dublin, Ireland. We caught up with Dr Marguerite Clyne ahead of the event to talk about why this is such an … Continue reading →

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Sewage science: Are bacteria just the tip of the fatberg?

Posted on May 18, 2018 by

The UK population continues to have a morbid fascination with fatbergs; these mammoth clumps of oil, wet wipes and human waste coagulate in sewers and grow with every flush. In 2017, a 130-tonne fatberg dubbed ‘The Beast’ made national headlines … Continue reading →

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Déjà flu: can science help the NHS cope with the annual burden of respiratory infections?

Posted on April 26, 2018 by

Last winter’s flu season was widely covered as having put huge pressure on the NHS, with reports the NHS is being thrown into ‘crisis’. What went wrong? And how can the NHS be supported in the future? At the Microbiology … Continue reading →

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HPV In Malawi

Posted on September 26, 2017 by

Malawi, in Sub-Saharan Africa, has the highest incidence and mortality of cervical cancer in the world. Nearly all cases of cervical cancer are caused by human papillomavirus, or HPV. Earlier this year, the Microbiology Society funded one of our members, … Continue reading →

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

Yemen is facing “the worst cholera outbreak in the world”

Posted on July 10, 2017 by

Yemen, on the southern edge of the Arabian Peninsula, is in the middle of a cholera epidemic, with 5,000 new cases being reported every day. The country is in the midst of a devastating civil war that has claimed the … Continue reading →

Posted in Clinical and Medical Microbiology | Tagged | 5 Comments

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 | 13 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 | 4 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 , , , | 3 Comments

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 | 3 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 | 1 Comment