Question: What is the most interesting thing you have discovered?

Jessica Forsyth answered on 9 Dec 2020:

I think the most interesting thing I’ve discovered so far is from my third year project at University. Most of my past and current work is focussed around the problem of antibiotic resistance. Let me explain this problem a little further. All over the world we use lots of antibiotics, whether it be to treat an infection, to prevent an infection in the first place (for example people are often given antibiotics before undergoing surgery in hospital to prevent any nasty bugs getting inside them) or in food production. This heavy reliance on antibiotics generates what we refer to as a ‘selection pressure’. That is, the more we use antibiotics, the more beneficial it becomes for bacteria to develop or evolve resistance. When bacteria evolve resistance they are no longer killed by antibiotics meaning infections can’t be successfully treated and patients remain unwell. It was thought that if we reduce this selection pressure by reducing our consumption and reliance on antibiotics then the level of resistance among bacterial populations will go down. However, what my project found was that antibiotic resistance was able to persist even in the absence of selection pressure favouring resistance. That is, once resistance has evolved in bacteria, it will remain resistant regardless of the strength of selection for resistance. This finding has huge implications for the way we solve the antibiotic resistance crisis. We can’t simply ask Doctor’s to prescribe fewer antibiotics and hope that bacteria lose their resistance genes. We need to find alternative ways to treat these infections instead which is what my postgraduate degree is focussing on!