Bash the bug
Help us tackle antimicrobial resistance (AMR) 🦠
Brought to you by the @modmedmicro.bsky.social team from @ox.ac.uk where we are trying to fight AMR through public outreach!
Visit our blog bashthebug.net
- 🔬 New blog post! Infections after joint replacement are serious, and identifying the bacteria quickly is crucial for patient care. We explain our research into metagenomic sequencing—reading all DNA in a sample to identify bacteria without needing lab growth. 👉 tinyurl.com/mrh8ukha #AMR #Genomics
- Read the full paper here: tinyurl.com/2a5z6tt8
- Diagnosing infected replacement hip or knee joints When patients suffer infections related to replaced knee or hip joints, medical teams need to know which bacteria are causing the problem. A promising new method called metagenomic sequencing reads all the DNA in a sample and can identify bacteria…
- Plant sale for Oxford Hospitals Charity Last week the MMM Unit held a plant sale to raise some money for Oxford Hospitals Charity. The work had started some weeks before with lots of propagation of spider plants and sourcing of paper coffee pots (so we didn't have to buy any plastic pots). The…
- Our team wore blue for World Antimicrobial Awareness Week 2025💙 Research into how resistance emerges, spreads and can be prevented is vital. Our group works to understand these processes and develop better tools to detect, monitor and combat antimicrobial resistance. #WAAW @oxfordbrc.bsky.social
- Dr Bernadette Young talking about Fluoroquinolones You can listen to our very own Dr Bernadette Young talking about fluoroquinolones -- these are a very valuable and widely-used class of antibiotics -- on Episode 32 of the Communicable podcast. This prestigious podcast is published by the European…
- Why is antimicrobial awareness important? Antimicrobial resistant infections are rising. In the next 25 years an estimated 39.1 million people globally will die from infections with antimicrobial resistance. So what can you do to help? Something as simple as finishing your course of antibiotics!
- Follow us to find out more about antimicrobial resistance this World Antimicrobial Awareness Week! #WAAW #WAAW2025 #AMR @oxfordbrc.bsky.social
- Antimicrobial resistance occurs when bacteria, viruses, fungi & parasites change over time - leading to medicines being less effective against them. Here you see bacteria growing and antibiotics (the small discs) which kill the bacteria...unless they are resistant! #WAAW #AMR @oxfordbrc.bsky.social
- Credit: Nicola Fawcett, Chris Wood, Oxford Medical Illustration (Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International – CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). 💙
- Read about the work we’re doing to make our research more sustainable Dot Nagy, one of our DPhil students, has written a great blog post about how she and others have got the rest of us in the Unit thinking more about how to reduce the environmental impact of our research.
- From Pipettes to Pipelines: Greening a Multidisciplinary Research Lab. @dotnagy.bsky.social writes about the experiences from the Modernising Medical Microbiology (MMM) research group on engaging wet lab, computer lab, and office teams on the #sustainability agenda. #GreenLab #SustainableScience
- Freezer Challenge! We have to keep most of our biological samples at -80°C which is much colder than the -20°C you'll find (hopefully) inside your freezer in the kitchen. This does require a lot of electricity. Valentina put in an application to the Freezer Challenge and we came 19th out of 115…
- Read what our work experience got up to with a blog post written on their final day! From gram staining to agar art 🦠 bashthebug.net/2025/07/11/w... #Microbiology #WorkExperience #YoungScientists
- 'Linking life expectancy to the bacteria in our gut: A final year undergraduate project'. Akika investigated how the gut microbiome influences longevity, with fieldwork in Nagano, Japan—home to the country’s longest-living population. Read the blog post here ➡️ bashthebug.net/2025/08/22/l...
- Updated blog link -> bashthebug.net/2025/08/28/l... #Microbiology #Microbiome #HealthyAging #GutHealth #StudentResearch
- Green Impact Silver Award! This year, our group has achieved Silver in the Green Impact award - a sustainability scheme which supports teams who want to improve their sustainability efforts. As part of the scheme, you are given a toolkit with lots of different activities to complete which…
- Who should own data about you? We ran a session at the Philosophy in Pubs Oxford group in April 2024, discussing where the moral lines can and should be drawn around the use of data about us. Who does the data really belong to? What are legitimate uses of it? What are the factors that make people…
- MMM at the Westgate Shopping Centre.. again This is the third year that the NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) held its Showcase at the popular Westgate Shopping Centre in the centre of Oxford. Like last year it was held jointly with the NIHR Oxford Health BRC. Our research software…
- Looping out bacteria (well couscous) is harder than it looks! @oxfordbrc.bsky.social @modmedmicro.bsky.social
- Come and play our dance mat game named after me! Outside John Lewis in the Westgate as part of the @oxfordbrc.bsky.social showcase!
- Come and find @modmedmicro.bsky.social at the Westgate in Oxford as part of the @oxfordbrc.bsky.social showcase!
- Join us this half term at Westgate, Oxford to find out how our scientists are working to improve your health! 📅 29 May 2025 ⌚ 10:00am – 3:30pm 📍 Westgate Oxford, Leiden Square (OX1 1PE) 🔗 oxfordbrc.nihr.ac.uk/brc-event/heal… @modmedmicro.bsky.social #ScienceOnTheHighStreet
