Stemming the tide of infection through applied infection prevention research at Glasgow Caledonian University
Our latest blog is by Laura Fregonese, a final year PhD student with the SHIP research group. In this piece, she reflects on the process of data collection for her PhD June 2022 marks the anniversary of my first interview for my research project. I remember that day like it was yesterday, as an emotional…
Each year, on the 5th of May we celebrate the World Hand Hygiene Day. This initiative is led by the World Health Organization, as part of the SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands Campaign and aims to bring people together from around the world to improve hand hygiene in health care and prevent healthcare-associated infections. This…
In this month’s blog post, Dr William Johnston, a research assistant in Biological and Biomedical Sciences and a member of the SHIP team, outlines how biofilms are changing microbiology research. I have been involved in microbiology research since back in my undergraduate days here at GCU, where I was focussing on catheter-related bloodstream infections. After graduating…
By Katie Hendry, Dr Lucyna Gozdzielewska and Prof Lesley Price Effective hand hygiene among healthcare staff is one of the most important infection prevention strategies available worldwide. Hand hygiene also helps individuals to effectively reduce bacteria on their hands in their daily lives. However, uncertainty remains concerning a range of issues related to hand hygiene,…
This month’s blog is by Deepti KC, a new PhD student with the SHIP research group. She is supervised by Dr. Valerie Ness, Prof. Kay Currie and Dr. Jan Smith. I vividly remember being offered a scholarship to commence a Ph.D. with the Safeguarding Health through Infection Prevention (SHIP) Research group at Glasgow Caledonian University…
By Ayodeji Matuluko Every year the World Health Organization (WHO) celebrates World Antimicrobial Awareness Week (WAAW) to increase awareness of the global public health threat of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). AMR is the ability of microorganisms to develop mechanisms that protect them against antimicrobial medicines, i.e. antibiotics, antivirals, antifungals and antiparasitics. There has been an increase…
While it is well known that hand hygiene helps to prevent infections in both healthcare and community settings, to be effective it needs to be performed in the correct way by using the 6-step technique, recommended by the World Health Organization. For this reason, healthcare workers are taught the 6-step hand hygiene technique during their…
It was a very busy summer in our GCU microbiology and food labs this year with three undergraduate students being awarded funded summer studentships. These students joined up with Ph.D. and other postgraduate students and undertook 8-week research placements. These placements were very successful and a massive thank you to the British Mycological Society, Microbiology…
This year’s Glasgow Science Festival’s Glasgow Connects is taking place between 1st and 30th September in a hybrid format, involving a wide range of live events held at a variety of venues across Glasgow and online “Science on the Sofa” activities. The SHIP team has once again participated in this exciting event by delivering an…
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has been declared one of the greatest threats to global health. Resistance occurs when a microbe mutates or acquires genetic information from another microbe, making it resistant to antibiotics. There are many contributing factors, one being antibiotic use in humans, therefore, improving antibiotic prescribing is crucial. Most available research on antimicrobial prescribing…