Microbe Talk

This Pride Month, Dr Bruno Francesco Rodrigues de Oliveira and Dr Landon Getz, two of the founders of the Pride in Microbiology network, join Lilly to discuss why their work to harness community and professional development opportunities for LGBTQ+ scientists around the world is as important as ever.

"I often like to say that we're not the antibiotic police, but we're the antibiotic sommelier. So, you have a bug and we have the drug, and we try to find the best fit."In this month's Microbe Talk, Charlotte Holtum (Head of Engagement & Storytelling) welcomes guests Dr Alicia Demirjian (UK Health Security Agency and Guy’s and St. Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust) and Dr Yoann Personne (bioMérieux), to explore an underdiscussed corner of the antimicrobial resistance conversation: its management with sepsis. They discuss what underpins the real-world relationship of AMR and sepsis, improving antibiotic stewardship in hospitals, and addressing these issues sooner rather than later.If you would like to read the ESPAUR report 2024 mentioned in this episode, please find it here.

In this episode of Microbe Talk, we meet some members of staff at the Microbiology Society to reflect on 2025 and look at ways to get involved in 2026.

In 2019, a mysterious shape appeared on a petri dish in a Birmingham lab. Its surprising appearance, similar to noodles, intrigued researchers to find out more about it. They consulted other scientists online at the time, which sparked an idea to start an online club dedicated to sharing laboratory contaminants.Now, the team finally publish their research characterising this contaminant as a new species of bacteria, Kocuria rhizophila, in our journal Microbial Genomics. Researchers Rob Moran and Greg McCallum join Communications and Media Officer Lilly Tozer to talk about their journey from discovery to publish.If you’d like to read the paper, you can do so by following this link: microb.io/47L8aoYStay tuned to the Microbiology Society socials to be the first to hear about exciting new research in the world of microbiology.You can download a full, auto generated transcript of the podcast here: microb.io/3J6DUf3

In January 2024, Aline Metris and Lindsay Hall hosted an academic-industry workshop at the Microbiology Society offices to discuss the potential long-term implications of microbiome perturbations. Since then, they’ve published a comprehensive summary of the findings from the workshop in Microbial Genomics. We invited them back to the Microbiology Society offices to chat with Clare about their experiences hosting the workshop and share their insights from the paper. If you’d like to read the review in Microbial Genomics you can do so by following this link. Stay tuned to the Microbiology Society socials to be the first to hear about Lindsay and Aline’s further work and our other projects on the microbiome. You can also read a full auto generated transcript of the podcast on our website here.

We're in Liverpool this week, hosting our annual conference and meeting our members, collaborators and authors.We know that there will be a lot of exciting conversations, interesting presentations and vital networking opportunities happening all over the and wanted to make sure you could keep the excitement going even after the events of the day have finished.So, across the four days of annual conference we'll be bringing you mini episodes of Microbe Talk, each featuring a presenter from the programme.We’re closing up with a chat with Andrew Spicer who is looking at the algae Chlorella in a new light. His invited talk ‘Reimagining Chlorella as a food and beverage ingredient suited for everyday foods’ was on Tuesday afternoon at the Annual Conference in the Microbes to meals session.

We're in Liverpool this week, hosting our annual conference and meeting our members, collaborators and authors.We know that there will be a lot of exciting conversations, interesting presentations and vital networking opportunities happening all over the and wanted to make sure you could keep the excitement going even after the events of the day have finished.So, across the four days of annual conference we'll be bringing you mini episodes of Microbe Talk, each featuring a presenter from the programme.For the second episode of our miniseries for Annual Conference Clare spoke to Elizabeth O’Gorman about her research titled ‘Adaptation of Campylobacter to Sodium Chloride Alters Phenotypes Associated with Human Disease’ which she will be presenting at the infection forum tomorrow afternoon. Elizabeth and Clare chat about food safety and how consumer trends might be altering the of bacteria on our meat.

In this episode of Microbe Talk Clare speaks to Judy Li, author on the latest Microbial Primer: Microbiome and thermal tolerance – a new frontier in climate resilience? Clare and Judy chat about the paper, the relatively new field of study and the possible mechanisms of microbes buffering organisms against temperature changes.If you'd like to Judy's paper, published in Microbiology you can do so here. You can also download a full transcript of the podcast on our website.Music: Documentary_Tidal by Comma-Media via Pixabay.

For the first episode of Microbe Talk in 2025, we’re bringing you something fascinating and a bit different— non-communicable diseases. In this special episode, Clare chats with Professor John Tregoning, a Professor in Vaccine Immunology, about his new book, 'Live Forever? A Curious Scientist’s Guide to Wellness, Ageing and Death'. Clare and John chat about why he's writing about non-communicable diseases, the processes behind his book and any public engagement advice he'd give to our community.Find out where you can buy a copy of Johns book by clicking here. You can also download a transcript of the podcast from our website here. Johns other work can be found here. Music by Yrii Semchyshyn from Pixabay

For this episode of Microbe Talk Clare is joined by Dr Sanjay Patel, a paediatric infectious disease and immunology consultant at Southampton Children's Hospital and the National Clinical Advisor for Paediatric Antimicrobial Stewardship at NHS England. Clare and Sanjay discuss paediatric AMR, why it's often overlooked and how Sanjay and his colleagues from clinical, research and policy backgrounds are taking action. If you'd like to learn more about research into antimicrobial resistance in neonates, take a look at this paper in Journal of Medical Microbiology.You can find details of how to get involved with Knocking Out AMR here.The resources and initiatives Sanjay mentioned are below: National empirical antimicrobial guidelines The common infection clinical pathways, the IV to oral switch decision aid The common infection paediatric pathways Music: Inspiring Science Technology - Comma Media from Pixabay

In aid of space week Clare is looking up into the sky with Dr Katherine Baxter about the exciting field of space microbiology. They chat about how research in space could help with problems back on earth, how microbes behave in space and how they might be key to survival in future space travel.The details of the ways to get involved are below. If you're in need of even more space content, keep your eye out for the next edition of Microbiology Today.The NASA Open Science Data Repository: awg.osdr.space/The SOLSTICE citizen science project: www.nasa.gov/osdr-working-groups-citizen-science/.Music by drmseq from Pixabay

For this episode of Microbe Talk Clare was joined by the wonderful Gwyn Dahlquist-Axe and Francesca Standeven, archaeological scientists who study AMR and ancient human oral microbiomes. They're on the podcast to discuss their review into diet, disease and antibiotic resistance from ancient human oral microbiomes published in Microbial Genomics.You can read their review 'Inferring diet, disease and antibiotic resistance from ancient human oral microbiomes' here. If you'd like to keep up with Francesca and Gwyn's research their Twitter (X) handles are @GDahlquistAxe and @fstandeven193 You can also read a full transcript of the podcast on our website.Music by Denys Kyshchuk from Pixabay

Last month was Women’s History Month, taking place annually throughout the month of March. It aims to highlight and reflect on the many, but often over-looked, achievements made by women throughout history – which have paved the way for the women of today. In this episode, to mark the month, we caught up with Society Champion and microbiologist, Dr Linda Oyama. Linda discusses her insights as a woman in science, by diving into some of her experiences, as well as her passion for outreach with young girls. To keep up with Linda, you can find her on X @LindaOyama.