Final year PhD student in mathematical modelling & microbiology @LSHTM & @StGeorgesUni.
Interested in anything related to infectious disease dynamics & #AMR !
Jul 26, 2021 • 12 tweets • 5 min read
#Phage are often only seen as bacterial predators, but they’re also major drivers of bacterial evolution through generalised transduction.
In this new preprint, we combine lab work & mathematical modelling to reveal the dynamics of this dual nature.
1/n biorxiv.org/content/10.110…
Generalised transduction happens when a replicating phage mistakenly packages non-phage DNA. The resulting transducing phage can inject this DNA in another bacteria, as shown in the Figure.
This is notably a powerful way to transfer plasmids, major vectors of #AMR genes.
These results emphasise the importance of local knowledge in predicting bed occupancy & capacity planning
1/n bmchealthservres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.11…
I previously wrote a thread going over the main results & implications of this work - head over there & read the paper for more details, here I will only cover a couple of key summary points
A few headlines popping up in the UK at the moment on "Supermarkets most common #COVID19 exposure location in England, data shows".
Yes, the data does show this, but don't be misled by incorrect interpretation!
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What is this data?
It's the latest @PHE_uk surveillance report, which looks at 34,328 #COVID19 cases with a common exposure with at least 1 other case, over the period 9th - 15th November
Currently a lot of discussions around #COVID19 superspreading events, so it's time for a thread to add some context and reply to common comments about this... 1/n
"*random setting* is not in the database! So it must safe!"
That's a risky conclusion to make. Not detecting transmission ≠ transmission didn't happen! There are a lot of biases that make it hard to identify some settings. We also have to remember that...
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