STAFF AND STUDENT OUTREACH ACTIVITY

Staff and students from the AROM team visited Nottingham Free School this week to deliver outreach sessions to four groups of year 10 pupils. Dr Jonathan Thomas showed pupils the Nanopore MinION – a USB-stick-sized DNA sequencer – and explained how next-generation sequencing technologies and epidemiology are being used to understand and control infectious diseases, including those caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria and the current novel coronavirus outbreak. Dr Jody Winter made a case for the roles of microbes in “saving the world”, including their potential applications in environmentally friendly food and biofuel production, and degradation of plastics. And our MBiol students Frazer McCuaig and Simon Barratt were on hand to answer pupils’ questions about university life – thank you for volunteering!​