Posts Tagged ‘microbiology’

anthony hilton

June 23rd, 2010

The public rarely has the opportunity to visit a working laboratory. Yet what goes on in our labs and research groups will help shape the future of us all. The public engagement of science — i.e. non-scientists, ordinary men and women knowing what goes on in our labs and universities helps us all understand the societal implications of research.

This is a form of democratic empowerment, says Dr Anthony Hilton, where the agenda is in the hands of the non-expert.

Dr Hilton is a Reader in Microbiology at Aston University undertaking world-class research. He’s also heavily committed to the public engagement of science. He’s taken his professional life into our living rooms through the BBC series Grime Scene Investigation and the One Show. In 2009, he received the Society for Applied Microbiology Communication Award, and the Aston Excellence Award for his contribution to community engagement. (For an example, see Aston University’s Microbiology Roadshow.)

His current research group is working on projects including the molecular epidemiology of hospital and community MRSA, phenotypic and genotypic characterisation of Clostridium difficile, the role of flying insects in the spread of hospital-associated pathogens and Salmonella carriage in companion animals.

Anthony Hilton is on Facebook.

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peter lambert

June 23rd, 2010

You may think that your body is yours, and yours alone. But it’s not. You’re sharing it . . . there are 10 microbes for every single cell in your body. Each one of us, within (what we think of as) our very own self, is outnumbered ten to one.

The world of microbes is an incredible one, unseen, unimagined by humankind until the invention of lenses. The work of microbiologists such as Professor Peter Lambert enable us literally to see and understand our world quite differently.

It’s a microscopic view of the world that helps us understand how it is we live, eat and breath, what viruses and bacteria there are within us and in the world, and how they affect us . . . Harnessing the power of microbes could even provide the answer to finding sources of energy that do not contaminate the world.

Peter Lambert is Professor of Microbiology in the School of Life and Health Sciences at Aston University. His main research interests are in infections caused by bacteria, particularly how they can be treated with antibiotics and what can be done when bacteria become resistant to antibiotics. This has been of increasing concern over the past 10 years with the emergence of hospital acquired infections due to bacteria such as MRSA and Clostridium difficile. Broader interests concern the diversity of bacteria in the world and how microbes can be used in the service of mankind.

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elizabeth wellington

June 21st, 2010

Professor Elizabeth Wellington asks a pertinent question in these times of swingeing cuts in universities. Are we training enough young scientists for the future?

She is in no doubt of the calibre of youngsters coming up, nor of the importance of the work they can do. Moreoever for the first time in her career, she’s noticing productive collaborations between biologists and physical scientists ranging from soil scientists to mathematicians and engineers, a trend that can only continue and to great beneficial effect. There are wide-ranging aspects of particular problems that need addressing.

But the question remains: Are we training enough of young scientists for the future?

Professor Liz Wellington is an environmental microbiologist, and has been involved in ecological research and soil microbiology for over 20 years. With a personal Chair, she is part of the Microbiology section within the Department of Biological Sciences at Warwick University, and was co-director of the Warwick Systems Biology Centre (2007-07) to co-ordinate interdisciplinary research allowing biological systems to be modelled. Her current research focuses on the fate of bacterial pathogens in the environment and understanding the functional properties of soil bacteria.


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mark pallen

June 18th, 2010

Captured in our computers are the inner workings of representative strains of bacterial species that can infect humans or our domesticated plants and animals. Author of The Rough Guide to Evolution, Mark Pallen speaks of the powerful knowledge that this genome sequencing places at our disposal.

Moreover, we can be confident that this new science will enable us to identify the crucial changes in our ancestry that made us human.

Mark Pallen is Professor of Microbial Genomics at the University of Birmingham.  As well as The Rough Guide to Evolution, he is also co-author of Bacterial Pathogenomics. The Pallen Research Group benefits from Research-Council funding spanning bioinformatics and laboratory-based projects, with interests focussing on bacterial pathogenomics and type III secretion.

He obtained his medical education at Cambridge and the London Hospital Medical College before completing his specialist training as a medical microbiologist at Bart’s. He held a chair in microbiology at Queen’s University, Belfast before moving to Birmingham in 2001.

In 1996 while completing a PhD in molecular bacteriology at Imperial College, he led a student team to victory in University Challenge.

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