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Posts by Phil Ashton

South Africa's surveillance infrastructure caught this. Malawi's didn't exist to.

This gap is not just a technical problem, it's a global equity problem. We cannot fight AMR without investing in surveillance capacity in low-resource settings.

1 month ago 1 0 0 0

It's also a reservoir for AMR determinants that could transfer to dominant invasive Salmonella lineages like Typhimurium. ⚠️

1 month ago 0 1 1 0

Nearly 90% of ST335 isolates carried XDR genotypes. Some had also acquired carbapenem and macrolide resistance. This is a very nasty bug, especially in this setting where treatment options are constrained.

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In Malawi, genomically identical isolates were found in children's bloodstream infections, neonatal ward surfaces, AND urban rivers downstream of the hospital.

In South Africa, national genomic surveillance revealed the same lineage spreading between hospitals.

1 month ago 0 0 1 0
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Hospital and environmental transmission of XDR Salmonella Isangi revealed by genomic Surveillance in Malawi and South Africa ABSTRACT Background Salmonella Isangi is an under-characterised serovar repeatedly associated with antimicrobial resistant hospital infections. Outbreaks of extensively drug-resistant (XDR) Salmonella...

🚨 New preprint: We've characterised one of the most drug-resistant Salmonella lineages we've ever encountered; Salmonella Isangi ST335, causing healthcare-associated bloodstream infections across southern Africa. www.medrxiv.org/content/10.6...

1 month ago 2 0 1 0
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Genomic Analysis of Salmonella Typhi from a Typhoid Conjugate Vaccine Trial Background Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi (S. Typhi), the causative agent of typhoid fever, continues to pose a major public health challenge in many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The W...

📣 New pre-print alert!
🦠 We sequenced S. Typhi from a vaccine trial in Malawi 🇲🇼
📊 No genomic differences between vaccine and control arms
💡 But with short follow-up, that’s exactly why ongoing genomic surveillance after vaccination is essential to detect escape.
www.medrxiv.org/content/10.6...

3 months ago 2 1 0 0

Delighted to (belatedly) announce that this work is now published in Microbiome! link.springer.com/article/10.1...

4 months ago 3 0 0 0

Would now be delighted to read a 3000 word exploration of how terrible Liverpool are.

4 months ago 0 0 0 0
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ChatGPT - Plasmid Integration Examples Shared via ChatGPT

Here’s a work one I can share, about plasmids integrating into chromosomes. This is ChatGPT o3 chatgpt.com/share/681f03...

11 months ago 1 0 0 0
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London was looking lovely in the sunshine yesterday!

11 months ago 0 0 0 0

Must be a nice view from the top, and at least you don’t have to look at the building when you’re in it :-D

11 months ago 0 0 0 0

Helped me think about and structure project aims and milestones. It’s basically like a management consultant that would cost £1000. In addition it’s also a top notch art critic, recipe maker, personal trainer, research assistant, bioinformatician, etc etc. Send your email and I’ll send some examples

11 months ago 0 0 0 0

Art galleries should provide good signal/free WiFi so that we can ask AI about the art work, rather than seemingly deliberately blocking it to stop people dicking about on their phones.

11 months ago 0 0 0 0

ChatGPT o3 is just mind blowing!

11 months ago 0 0 1 0

I'm sure that being a medieval peasant and growing all your own food must have been satisfying in its own way, but they'll never know the satisfaction of having a fully charged battery pack will they?

11 months ago 0 0 0 0
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What's new in biology Return of the screwworm, new DNA vaccines, gene editing at scale, and more

Great post from Works in Progress mag on recent scientific findings:

"For over 50 years, the USDA has airdropped millions of sterilized male screwworm flies weekly along the Panama–Colombia border."

www.worksinprogress.news/p/reporter-g...

11 months ago 1 0 0 0

Speakers include @flashton.bsky.social @dralhubb.bsky.social @danybeste.bsky.social @jodywinter.bsky.social @dannagifford.bsky.social and more!
Plus, lots of time to interact with other researchers and industry people in the field (including dinner!).
Maybe see you there?

1 year ago 6 2 0 0
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Antibiotic Resistance and Mechanisms (ARM) Workshop for Researchers 2025 - The British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy

@friendlymicrobe.bsky.social and I invite you to the @bsacandjac.bsky.social antibiotic resistance and mechanisms conference Nov 27-28 in Birmingham! We have great talks on global AMR healthcare, mechanisms, vaccines/immunotherapy, antimicrobial interactions and outreach.
bsac.org.uk/antibiotic-r...

1 year ago 10 8 1 1

Chuffed to announce that I've started a new job with @daanensen.bsky.social at the @thecgps.bsky.social, supporting the uptake of genomics for AMR in global health!

1 year ago 9 0 1 0

Is it acceptable to respond to a reviewers comment by saying "yes, that's a lovely idea, but we already have 27 supplementary tables, so i'm not going to do it"?

1 year ago 4 0 0 0
Pathogenwatch A global platform for genomic surveillance.

Hi Bluesky! We’re looking forward to engaging with the community and our users on here. Follow this account for updates on the Pathogenwatch platform (pathogen.watch), as well as our sister tools @microreact.bsky.social and @amrwatch.bsky.social developed by @thecgps.bsky.social

1 year ago 16 4 2 0
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The prophet of parking A eulogy for the great Donald Shoup

Today in @worksinprogress.bsky.social, I reflect on Donald Shoup's legacy. Perhaps the most interesting question: how did the most unlikely professor kick off an international parking reform movement?
substack.com/home/post/p-...

1 year ago 42 13 2 0
Microbiome science needs more microbiologists - Nature Microbiology Microbiome science is a multi-disciplinary field, but classical microbiologists are needed to ensure advances are grounded in our understanding of basic microbiological concepts.

I'm very interested in the idea to think about microbiome/metagenome datasets in terms of ecological guilds presented in this paper www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Is there any ontology, or other organised database, of microbial ecological guilds, with example species?

1 year ago 2 1 0 0
Genomic Epi Jobs

I've been maintaining a job board at www.genomicepi.com/jobs for a couple of years. I started this with several goals in mind

1 year ago 3 2 1 0
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Maundaymas?

1 year ago 1 0 0 0

Interesting,. Would be better if could be done without request? Or at least, default when uploading to being requested?

1 year ago 0 0 0 0

What kind of psycopath has Sunday as the first day of the week on their calendar?

1 year ago 0 0 1 0
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Registration & Information Learn more about the congress and events hosted by ESCMID in the fields of Clinical Microbiology (CM) and Infectious Disease (ID).

Registration for #IMMEM14 is now open! Don't forget it is limited to 350 participants so secure your spot. @escmid.bsky.social @esgem.bsky.social escmid.org/congress-eve...

1 year ago 11 7 0 0

It would be nice if Google Scholar gave citation metrics excluding self-citations.

1 year ago 2 0 0 0
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I'm seeing this box on biorxiv pre-prints. Anyone know how to post a community review?

1 year ago 0 0 1 0