COVID-19
A recent Innovate UK grant has added a new workstream to Dr Hammond’s lab, in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic UVC light has been seen as a possible method of dampening the effect of viral spread. The effects of UVC light on human skin commensal bacteria is unknown. Dr Hammond and colleagues at the university of Dundee are working to understand what effects, if any, this radiation will have on the bacteria that live on our skin.
At the University of St Andrews we have developed just such a novel technology: SLIC. The Scattered Light Integrated Collector is a step change in the way in which antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) is done. Due to SLIC’s exquisite sensitivity, it can detect tiny changes in microbial population. Where current photonic technology has a limit of detection (LoD) around 10,000 microbial cells in 1 millilitre of liquid SLIC’s LoD is 25 cells/mL. This translates to rapid detection of population change, either growth or decline.
