💥CONTAM CALENDAR GIVEAWAY💥 Here's your chance to win the #ContamCalendar 2023 - available at contam.club 📅🍄🧫🦠 Just follow Contamination Club and RT this tweet to enter the competition The winner will be randomly selected on Wednesday @ 6pm UTC 🎲

❔Do different E.coli pangenomes evolve in the same way? Find out in the first paper from Dr Lilly Cummins PhD, Published #OpenAccess and fee-free in #MGen using a #PublishAndRead agreement: doi.org/10.1099/mgen.0… 👈

Submitted my thesis today after 4 great years with @alanmcn1. Sad to be leaving IMIBirmingham but excited for my new adventures, starting with finally making this puzzle!

Really cool job going in an awesome lab - interested in clinical samples and metagenomics? Check this out!

Really excited to have my paper out in Microbiology Society MGen. Check out this set of highly diverse plasmids, including some interesting blaCTX-M and mcr co-carriage plasmids!

Fun fact about this year's ContamCalendar - it was created entirely from a hospital bed after I spent 7 weeks in hospital following heart surgery. This surgery was actually partially related to both contamination and the ContamCalendars.... 📆🫀🩺🦠

Had a wonderful time coming back to campus for graduation on Monday! Thank you to @alanmcn1 and the IMIBirmingham for 4 great years! A lot of fun and a lot of learning!

New work in npj Antimicrobials and Resistance describes the mechanism behind a #vancomycin-variable isolate of #Enterococcus faecium from a hospital outbreak! 🏥🦠 From Dr Ross McInnes, Ann Snaith, S. Dunn, Maria Papangeli, Katie Hardy, Abid Hussain & Willem van Schaik @[email protected] ⭐️ (1/6) nature.com/articles/s4425…

A fastidious, capnophilic GNCB found as a commensal of the human oral pharynx. This difficult to grow organism is oxidase, catalase and urease negative and is linked clinically to cases of endocarditis, sinusitis, empyema and abscesses. What am I? #microbiology #endocarditis

A new publication from my PDRA with @alanmcn1. Working with our UK-India collaborators, we screened the ability of non-antibiotic pharmaceuticals to cause genetic changes and cross-resistance to antibiotics (spoiler, not so much). nature.com/articles/s4425…

This Gram-positive spore forming rod is seen in the environment and frequently as a laboratory contaminant. Classically it has large flat, grey matt colonies, but can have other morphologies. It is a well-known cause of food poisoning. What am I?

This facultatively aerobic Gram-negative curved rod is frequently found associated to aquatic environments. It is oxidase positive and non-spore forming. It primarily causes gastroenteritis but can cause bacteraemia. What am I?

A cause of ‘culture negative’ endocarditis due to the requirement of pyridoxal and/or cysteine for growth. Growth is enhanced in anaerobic conditions on chocolate or fastidious anaerobic agar. A pleomorphic organism that can appear as a GPCC, GPCB or GPB. What am I?

This aerobic weakly staining Gram-negative rod requires L-cysteine to grow. Its colonies have a ground glass appearance. Clinically this organism commonly causes pneumonia and Pontiac fever. Who am I?

Super excited to have this paper out! Thank you to UoB and QEHB teams who helped me with sampling and supported this project during lockdowns. It was great to have a clinical science link during my PhD! :)

We had a fantastic day at the East Midlands AMR Network Conference this week. Met some fabulous people and heard some interesting presentations. Thank you for the invite. #EastMidlandsAMR #EMAN #AMR #WAAW2024

This Gram-negative bacilli causes sporadic and epidemic infections globally. It utilises the xylose and decarboxylates the lysine in XLD media increasing the pH creating red colonies. It metabolises thiosulphate in the media to produce hydrogen sulphide (black centres) What am I?