• Question: how did you end up growing bugs from wee and poo?

    Asked by 09gheggier to Gem, Andrew, Ash, Paige, SJ on 23 Jun 2012. This question was also asked by iliketrainswin, pongo597, sciantistinquestion, abbie98.
    • Photo: Gemma Staite

      Gemma Staite answered on 23 Jun 2012:

      I was always interested in disease and the human body. There was an open evening at a local hospital, in their pathology department. I was about 14 at the time and I didn’t really know what pathology involved. I went along and I loved it. We were shown around all of the pathology sections. I spoke to someone about going for work experience and they arranged it for me. I spent a week in microbiology and a week in histopathology. I had a fantastic time and decided this was what I wanted to do. I preferred microbiology because it was more hands on, so I stuck at it and now, here I am.

    • Photo: Paige Brown

      Paige Brown answered on 29 Jun 2012:

      Bugs bugs, bacteria everywhere! Did you know that you have special bacteria that grow in your belly button, that don’t grow anywhere else on your body? And they have benefits for your skin, actually! They are called your belly button bacterial flora! http://arbesman.net/2011/04/13/the-belly-button-science-collection/

    • Photo: SarahJayne Boulton

      SarahJayne Boulton answered on 1 Jul 2012:

      Gem is our resident expert on growing bugs – for me the only ones I’ve grown for experiments have been from my hands and throat!

      We grew these bad boys to look at how things called ‘bacteriophages’ (little virus-like things) infect bacteria, and how this could be exploited to make bacteria produce things we want them to, like insulin or special fluorescent proteins!

      The throat one was because no-one believed I had a blood eating streptococcus infection – I showed them!!

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