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📣 Episode 186 is out now! This month, Lilly welcomes Dr Jason Brown from the University of Glasgow to discuss his latest research findings using cold atmospheric plasma (CAP), a form of ionised gas, against biofilms in wound infections. Listen in to hear their discussion of what CAP therapy is, how it works, and why this treatment could be a useful alternative to antibiotics. 

📣 Episode 185 is out now! This month, Lilly welcomes Dr Hannah Trivett from the University of Birmingham to the podcast, to discuss her latest publication bringing patient and public involvement (PPI) and microbial genomics research together for the first time ever. Listen in to hear their discussion of what the public think about effective science communication and how researchers can benefit from incorporating this into their work.

📣 Episode 184 is out now! In this month's Microbe Talk, Lilly welcomes 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. 

📣 Episode 183 of Microbe Talk is out now!

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.

In this month's Microbe Talk, Lilly chats with microbiologist Prof Wilhelmina Huston about what science knows so far about the relationship between the vaginal microbiome - the composition of microbes that live on and within the vagina - and sexual health, including her recent research investigating how the microbial composition of the vagina can impact susceptibility to painful conditions, like pelvic inflammatory disease (PID). We also cover current treatments and where the future of treatment of STIs and other sexual health disorders is headed.

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 this month's Microbe Talk, we chat to expert Kinga Kowalewska-Grochowska at the University of Alberta, Canada, following her latest review 'Parasitology of the twenty-first century: are we moving in the right direction?', published in the Journal of Medical Microbiology.

In 2019, a mysterious contaminant lead to the start of Contamination Club, an online club dedicated to weird and wonderful intruders. In this month's Microbe Talk, two of the team, Rob Moran and Greg McCallum, join us to talk about their journey and the online community that they've built.

In this episode of Microbe Talk, Clare talks to An Bui from the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Alberta about their paper published in Microbiology, the first systematic review of the potential effects of psychotropics (the drugs used to treat bipolar disorder) on the gut microbiome of treated and untreated bipolar individuals.

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.

In this episode, Adam discovers how two microbiologists from opposite sides of the world formed a collaboration and mentorship that has greatly benefited them both.
When in-person classes were suspended during the 2020 lockdown, Akpan Friday, a student from Nigeria, reached out on social media seeking support to continue his and his classmates’ learning. Dr Beth Mills from the University of Edinburgh responded to the call and began delivering free online lectures to the students.
Although they have yet to meet in person, their relationship has developed into a mentor–mentee partnership, and both were delighted to share their story.

Thank you to everyone who attended the Annual Coference 2025 in Liverpool. If the week has left you wanting more, or you were unable to make it this time, don't worry, as we've put together a special miniseries of podcasts featuring speakers from the programme.

In this episode, Adam talks to Dr Georgios Efthimiou from the University of Hull.  Georgios has created a nationwide ‘spooky’ short story competition called Coccus Pocus. This project links outreach and Halloween with microbiology.  This creative competition has had a clear impact on 12 – 18-year-olds who find the competition a good way to discover an interest in microbiology and have had a lot of fun writing the stories.  Join Adam as he learns more about this Microbiology Society-funded project (and you may hear from a few society staff members reading some of this year's winners along the way).

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.

In this episode of Microbe Talk Clare spoke to Adam Aspinall who's Senior Director in the Access and Product Management team at Medicines for Malaria Venture. They discuss Malaria, antimalarial drug resistance and the work that Medicines for Malaria Venture is doing to support new drug discovery.

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. 

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.

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.

Yesterday, we released our vision statement for Knocking Out Antimicrobial Resistance, the Society's new cross-disciplinary project. It outlined the key issues faced by the AMR community: the lack of understanding of the urgency of the crisis, a fragmented AMR landscape and a broken innovation pipeline.

So for this special Knocking Out AMR episode of Microbe Talk Clare spoke to Professor Paul Hoskisson to pick his brain on his latest venture: a one million pound project to use food by-products make antimicrobial production more cost effective and sustainable.