Microbe Talk

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

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.

If you'd like to find out more about the Microbiology Society's Knocking Out AMR project, you can do so here.

If you'd like to find out more about the work that Medicines for Malaria do, take a look at their resources here: 

MMV website: http://mmv.org

Severe Malaria Observatory : severemalaria.org

Music: Blue Dot Sessions - Blue Latex

 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: 

Music: Inspiring Science Technology - Comma Media from Pixabay

The month of October is #BlackHistoryMonth and this year we caught up with Society Champion, Dr Amaka Awayne, on our latest episode of the Microbe Talk podcast. Dr Amaka discusses her insightful experiences as a Black person working in science, as well as how she is contributing to Black History Month this year.

Find out how to get more involved with Society activities via our Get Involved webpage: microb.io/4f18YYd

Music by The_Mountain 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

Clare is back with another episode of Microbe Talk and this time she’s investigating the topic of Microbial Forensics with Dr Tim Inglis from the University of Western Australia. Tim is the Editor-in-Chief of the Society’s Journal of Medical Microbiology where he published his review on the topic: ‘A systematic approach to microbial forensics’.

You can read a full transcript of this podcast on our website.

Music by Denys Kyshcuk 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

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.

The Microbiology Society's Knocking Out AMR Vision statement can be found on our website here.

Paul's Socials:
Bluesky @paulhoskisson.bsky.social
Twitter @PaulHoskisson
Instagram @paulhoskisson

Music by Yurii Semchyshyn from Pixabay

You can read a full transcript of this podcast on our website. 

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.

 Dr Claas Kirchhelle from University College Dublin will be giving the Hot Topic Lecture: "Faecal Flows – a very short history of microbiology, sewers, and Britain's rivers (ca.1850-2023)" at this years Annual Conference. Clare spoke to Claas to find out how he's feeling ahead of his lecture and to pick his brain about his intriguing research area.

If you're at Annual Conference this year, you can catch Claas' Hot topic Lecture at 8:45 on Thursday 11 April. Alternatively, Claas' lecture will be available online after Annual Conference.

Music by Denys Kyshchuk from Pixabay

You can download a full transcript of the podcast here.