• Question: What kind of experiments do you perform at work?

    Asked by DanM2 to Abid, Donna, Sanjib, Thomas, Avril on 12 Jun 2017.
    • Photo: Donna Johnson

      Donna Johnson answered on 12 Jun 2017:

      I grow bacteria and then expose them to an antimicrobial agent to try and get them to develop resistance so i can then look at the genes that help in resistance. Then i do molecular biology methods like PCR (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_transcription_polymerase_chain_reaction) and extracting the RNA and DNA from the bacterial cells.

    • Photo: Avril Tucker

      Avril Tucker answered on 12 Jun 2017:

      The stuff I’m doing at the moment is around Behaviour Change science and Quality Improvement methodology. I’m trying to work with GPs and the public to change the way we use antibiotics. We need to save them for when we do actually really need them, rather than taking them inappropriately when we have a cold etc. Colds are caused by viruses so antibiotics will be of no use but may cause other bacteria to become resistant.

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