Question: what was the most interesting thing you have seen/discovered whilst working with bacteria?

Simon Webster answered on 1 Oct 2025:

I’m not sure I’ve discovered anything really but one of the best things I’ve seen is when we test for a certain bacteria that causes Legionnaires disease in people. The bacteria is called Legionella and it can cause particularly nasty lung infection in vulnerable people. It can be got from contaminated water cooled air conditioning systems that most large office and factory buildings use. When we need to test for the bacteria quickly after there has been an outbreak of illnesses we concentrate water samples and put it onto microscope slides. We then stain the slide with a chemical which only binds to Legionella. Connected to the chemical is a fluorescent molecule which glows under ultraviolet (UV) light. If the chemical binds to Legionella then it exposes the fluorescent molecule so it will shine in UV. We then look at the slides under a high power microscope and ‘search’ for glowing bacteria! It’s a bit like doing hide and seek at the quantum scale!