None of this happens without an incredible team at Liverpool Clinical Laboratories, @livuni-livsrf.bsky.social.
A huge thank you to @annasmielewska.bsky.social and @acdarby.bsky.social for their leadership. (7/7)
#AMR #NHS #ClinicalMicrobiology
@livuniresearch.bsky.social
Bit of advice to Labour members. I’d treat any Streeting pledges as equivalent to Starmer pledges…
Rapid release of multiplex PCR amplicon scheme for Andes hantavirus whole genome sequencing validated on control material: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... @scalene.bsky.social @stevepullan.bsky.social @ukhsa.bsky.social output from HPRU in Public Health Genomics
BBSRC Early Independence Fellowships had an Outline stage this year to try help with amount of peer review. Turns out they received 586 applications, a 110% increase on 2025, and only typically fund 15 a year. They are cancelling this stage and going straight to full app with an institutional sift.
The assay was also huge for antimicrobial stewardship - in 56.9% of samples, the result directly shaped antibiotic decisions. The biggest impact was in immunocompromised patients, who were significantly more likely to have their treatment changed as a result. đź’Š (5/7)
To our knowledge, this was the first time in the UK that this type of assay was made widely & routinely available to all NHS patients, including children and the immunosuppressed. Once the assay was launched, we assessed where it was most useful. (3/7)
This work won a 2024 @rcpath.bsky.social Achievement Award, which meant a lot to the whole team 🏆 And it's been brilliant watching 16S & metagenomics in healthcare settings really grow since we launched. The field is in a good place! (6/7)
Ed Cunningham-Oakes
After extensive development, on 1st May 2023, we launched a routine 16S Oxford Nanopore service across seven NHS hospitals in Cheshire & Merseyside to meet the growing demand for rapid genomic diagnostics (here is the team below celebrating the launch!). (2/7)
Our paper is now published in eBioMedicine and I'm genuinely thrilled it's out 🎉 🧵 www.thelancet.com/journals/EBI...
Despite the fact that this is a 2026 paper (such is peer review!), I wanted to write something and take you back to 2023, where the story of this work began. (1/7)
So why was it needed? Standard cultures fail, especially once a patient is already on antibiotics. This makes it challenging to improve therapy. This test goes straight to the DNA from sterile samples like pus, tissue & fluid. There were lots of reasons for test requests! (see figure below) (4/7)
