Read our new blog post! Risk factors for antimicrobial resistance in cancer patients and survivors: an electronic health record study by Annie Hu

Risk factors for antimicrobial resistance in cancer patients and survivors: an electronic health record study

Bloodstream infections occur when bacteria (which are germs that can cause disease) enter the blood and grow there. These infections are usually treated with antibiotics. However, bacteria can become resistant, meaning the antibiotics no longer work, and this is called antimicrobial resistance (AMR). It is a major worldwide health problem and people with cancer are especially at risk because both cancer treatments and the cancer itself weaken their immune systems (bodies own protection system).

bashthebug.net

Work experience: an exciting week at MMM! Over the last week I have had the pleasure of doing work experience here at MMM Labs, this has provided me with an incredible opportunity and skills that will benefit me greatly in the future such as pipetting and plating techniques. Over the course of the…

Work experience: an exciting week at MMM!

Over the last week I have had the pleasure of doing work experience here at MMM Labs, this has provided me with an incredible opportunity and skills that will benefit me greatly in the future such as pipetting and plating techniques. Over the course of the week, I have had the chance to talk to multiple members of the team and have had 1 on 1 conversations about their careers and certain topics such as bioinformatics, phylogenetic trees, environmental sampling from sinks and many more.

bashthebug.net

I named all the coffee machines in @modmedmicro.bsky.social

Work experience: lab opportunities and career pathway chats! Over the last three days we had the pleasure of being introduced to the MMM team and the work they do...

Work experience: lab opportunities and career pathway chats!

Over the last three days we had the pleasure of being introduced to the MMM team and the work they do. After understanding a bit more about lab safety, the pathways that lead to a role in microbiology, as well as how the lab performs sustainable practices, we were able to do our own hands-on experiments. We had the opportunity to amplify bacterial DNA using PCR to determine whether it carried a resistant gene to antibiotics.

bashthebug.net

Sometimes, food can look good & still make you sick. You can reduce your risk of illness incl. by: ✅ Cooking meat all the way through ✅ Washing fruit & vegetable with safe water ✅ Keeping food at safe temp. 🆕 WHO estimates of the global burden of foodborne diseases 2026 ed. https://bit.ly/4dQyKQI

NIHR webinar on BashTheBug on YouTube BashTheBug was originally a large international citizen science project that invited anyone to help us classify how well different samples of M. tuberculosis grew in the presence of a range of antibiotics. It ran from 2017 to 2021 and in that time 46,427…

NIHR webinar on BashTheBug on YouTube

BashTheBug was originally a large international citizen science project that invited anyone to help us classify how well different samples of M. tuberculosis grew in the presence of a range of antibiotics. It ran from 2017 to 2021 and in that time 46,427 people took part and collectively they classified 4,746,420 images of M. tuberculosis growing on different concentrations of one of 13 antibiotics. 

bashthebug.net

We had an amazing time in Westgate, Oxford today! We had many attempts to 'bash the bug' and get the high score for the day on our dance mat 💃🕺 where overusing antibiotics causes resistance so you have to be careful what you're prescribing!💊 #AMR #ScienceOutreach #Microbiology #Oxford

Come and try our strawberry DNA extraction! 🍓Find out how this technique can be used by scientists to diagnose infections and choose which antibiotics to prescribe 💊 @oxfordbrc.bsky.social @ox.ac.uk #AMR #Oxford

We're ready at the @oxfordbrc.bsky.social! Come over and extract strawberry DNA, fight super bugs on the dance mat, or solve the mystery of the hospital outbreak! #AMR #PublicOutreach #Science

Come see us at the @oxfordbrc.bsky.social showcase! We'll be in Westgate, Oxford 10-3.30. We'll be bringing the dance mat so come and try to beat the germs with antibiotics and claim the high score💃🕺 #AMR #PublicOutreach @ox.ac.uk

Did you know that the NHS offers free latent TB infection testing and treatment to people at greatest risk of TB? As at you GP surgery or find out more at www.thetruthabouttb.org. Prevention is better than cure. #worldtbday2026 #worldtbday

Using graph neural networks and protein structural data, we’ve also shown how deep learning can improve prediction of pyrazinamide resistance — highlighting the potential of structure-aware models to tackle complex antimicrobial resistance challenges. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Predicting pyrazinamide resistance in Mycobacterium tuberculosis using a graph convolutional network - BMC Microbiology

BMC Microbiology - Pyrazinamide is an important first-line antibiotic for treating tuberculosis, with resistance primarily driven by mutations in the pncA gene. Traditional machine learning models...

link.springer.com

We’ve explored compensatory mutations that can restore bacterial fitness in resistant strains, helping explain how resistant TB continues to spread — and reinforcing the urgency of better diagnostics and stewardship. www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/jour...

Compensatory mutations are associated with increased in vitro growth in resistant clinical samples of Mycobacterium tuberculosis

Mutations in Mycobacterium tuberculosis associated with resistance to antibiotics often come with a fitness cost for the bacteria. Resistance to the first-line drug rifampicin leads to lower competiti...

microbiologyresearch.org

Our work on bedaquiline resistance (catomatic) provides a reproducible way to construct catalogues of resistance-associated variants — critical for protecting one of the key drugs used to treat MDR-TB. www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/jour...

An improved catalogue for whole-genome sequencing prediction of bedaquiline resistance in Mycobacterium tuberculosis using a reproducible algorithmic approach

Bedaquiline (BDQ) has only been approved for use for just over a decade and is a key drug for treating multidrug-resistant tuberculosis; however, rising levels of resistance threaten to reduce its eff...

microbiologyresearch.org

We’ve developed tools like gnomonicus, which translate genomic data into actionable resistance predictions using the WHO catalogue, achieving >95% sensitivity and specificity for two key first-line drugs. www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/jour...

Characterizing the performance of an antibiotic resistance prediction tool, gnomonicus, using a diverse test set of 2,663 Mycobacterium tuberculosis samples

Tuberculosis remains a global health problem. Making it easier and quicker to identify which antibiotics an infection is likely to be susceptible to will be a key part of the solution. Whilst whole-ge...

microbiologyresearch.org

Our recent preprint shows that Oxford Nanopore sequencing, combined with improved DNA extraction and amplification, can deliver rapid and reliable genomic characterisation directly from clinical cultures — helping move toward real-time TB diagnostics. Read more: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

On #WorldTBDay, it’s important to reflect on the scale of the challenge we’re facing. In 2024 alone, tuberculosis (TB) caused 1.23 million deaths worldwide, remaining the leading cause of death from a single infectious agent, according to WHO @ndm.ox.ac.uk

Since 2017 the CRyPTIC project collected and collated 53,897 clinical TB samples with genetics and drug susceptibility testing data. You can download the datasets via crypticproject.info and v4.0.0 will appear later this year. #WorldTBDay @modmedmicro.bsky.social

Bash the Bug at ATOM Festival: Dancing, Germs, and the Challenge of Antimicrobial Resistance! We had a fantastic time this weekend at ATOM Festival in Abingdon, bringing microbiology to life with our Bash the Bug public engagement activities.

We had a brilliant time this weekend at ATOM Festival in Abingdon! ☀️🦠 We brought along our favourite interactive activities to help people learn about antimicrobial resistance #AMR, including our dance mat game where you fight germs with antibiotics, and we tested everyone’s handwashing skills!

Science is everywhere: in our bodies, our food, our classrooms. This #BritishScienceWeek, meet e-Bug: UKHSA's free health education programme, which helps teachers bring infection science to life from early years to KS3. Curious? Find out more at 🔗 https://www.e-bug.eu/british-science-week

International Day of Women and Girls in Science 👩‍🔬 Proud to work alongside the scientists in our #microbiology lab whose work in antimicrobial resistance, public health and diagnostics has real-world impact! #WomenInScience #AMR #PublicHealth @medsci.ox.ac.uk @ox.ac.uk @oxfordbrc.bsky.social

MMM has an exciting UNIQ+ project running this summer -apply now! Bacteria, microplastics & resistance — what’s the connection? #Microplastics are everywhere, even in hospitals. But what happens when bacteria stick to them? Come and find out! @afswinkels.bsky.social @nstoesser.bsky.social

Happy our preprint is out🦠: "Evaluation of an Oxford Nanopore sequencing workflow for mycobacteria from primary MGIT culture" We developed and tested a workflow for long-read sequencing of #mycobacteria, including optimising DNA extraction and assessing how #ONT performs compared with #Illumina.

Our project "Sardinia’s Invisible Marine Microbiome" is one of six 2026 #PartArt4OW participatory art initiatives! Excited to do this with the brilliant @annadumitriu.bsky.social (image credit), Sardinian scientists, citizens of Alghero, and colleagues in @modmedmicro.bsky.social @bashthebug.net

Univ of Oxford UNIQ+ scheme applications open: 7-week research internship this Summer www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/g.... Lots of projects - one in our lab on microplastics & AMR & hospital environments at @modmedmicro.bsky.social led by Aram Swinkels www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/g... (Clin Med 04). Join us!

What is UNIQplus? | University of Oxford

The UNIQplus programmeThe UNIQplus programme is aimed at supporting talented undergraduates from under-represented groups, who would find continuing into postgraduate study a challenge for reasons

ox.ac.uk

🔬 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

Our paper is out in Microbial Genomics! 🧬 We evaluate gnomonicus, an open-source AMR prediction tool, using 2,663 Mycobacterium tuberculosis genomes—showing how WGS can deliver faster, scalable TB resistance predictions. Read the full paper here🔗 bit.ly/4iZepd1 #TB #AMR #Genomics

Characterizing the performance of an antibiotic resistance prediction tool, gnomonicus, using a diverse test set of 2,663 Mycobacterium tuberculosis samples

Tuberculosis remains a global health problem. Making it easier and quicker to identify which antibiotics an infection is likely to be susceptible to will be a key part of the solution. Whilst whole-ge...

bit.ly

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…

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 stall was staffed all day -- by Katie Hopkins and Valentina Pennetta in the photo -- and a grand total of £212 was raised. It's the first year we've run an event like this and the team are already looking forward to next year!

bashthebug.net