Cafe Scientifique
- Date
- Tuesday 21 November 2017
On Tuesday, 21 November 2017, Prof Lars Jeuken & Dr Jonathan Sandoe, spoke at a well-attended discussion on antimicrobial resistance at the Cafe Scientifique Leeds, Jonathan and Lars gave a short talk on antibiotic resistant infections, how they come about, the difficulties of diagnosing infections and how rapid diagnostics might help to reduce prescriptions of antibiotics. The event was attended by about 50 participants and the talk was followed by an hour of question & answer session. Participants raised questions on how taking antibiotics can have negative side effects, the difference been viral and bacterial infections (and antivirals), the problems with detecting infections via nucleic acid amplification (which detects bacterial DNA) and how biomarkers can help distinguish between viral and bacterial infections. There was in particular a long discussion on 'good bacteria' that form part of the natural human biota and 'bad bacteria' that (can) cause infections and how antibiotics work on both.