Melinda Ashcroft (PhD)

Ahhh, a classic November day in Brisbane. Welcome!

⚠️For everyone at @lenagroup4resp.bsky.social #WBConf25, come check out my poster on Tuesday evening #52 on the incidence of #NTM in #FirstNationsPeople in #Australia. 🧫🦠🇦🇺🪃

🧫🦠Only 2 weeks left to submit abstracts (July 15) for @amiposts.bsky.social's #MSCW Conference! Connect with leading scientists, policymakers, and #EMCRs across the #AsiaPacific.

#Microbiology, #PublicHealth, #Climate & the #Environment.

Poster for the Applied Microbiology International's Microbial Solutions for a Changing World conference on 25-27 November 2025, at Monash University, Melbourne Australia showing the 9 keynote speakers.

⚠️Join us for @amiposts.bsky.social EMCR conference #MSCW25: Microbial Solutions for a Changing World (Melbourne, Australia). Focusing on: #GreenhouseGases, #PathogenControl, & #EnvironmentImpacts.

⏰Abstracts close July 15!

#Microbiology #ClimateChange

appliedmicrobiology.org/ems-event-ca...

The growing threat of nontuberculous mycobacteria infections Once overlooked, NTM are now drawing increased attention as their infections pose significant and complex diagnostic challenges. Advances in diagnostic technologies offer the potential to overcome the...

The latest feature in #TheMicrobiologist dives into the emerging threat of nontuberculous mycobacteria, and explores diagnostic options. #NTM @brukercorporation.bsky.social
www.the-microbiologist.com/features/the...

Great data visualisations! I love when genomics and epidemiology intersect!

Our new paper on the global epi of IMP carbapenemases. We originally called this paper: ‘Planet of the IMPs’ as IMPs are now everywhere. We found IMP variant-specific distributions across species, plasmids, mobile elements and geography
www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...

#amr #amrsky #IDsky

One patient, two samples

Weeks apart, E. faecium picked up vancomycin resistance

By sequencing vancomycin-susceptible strains on-site, we caught this early & avoided unnecessary, disruptive interventions #Genomics

Proud to share at #nanoporeconf!
@nanoporetech.com

🖥️🧬💻
#AcademicSky
#MicroSky
🧪🧫🦠

My partner says this about our cat all the time. She definitely displays some non-cat-like behaviours haha.

My supervisor, Prof. Rachel Thomson, head of the NTM Research Group at UQ (medical-school.uq.edu.au/research/ntm...), has recently published excellent work on the role of drinking water in MABS transmission.
#NTM #GenomicEpidemiology #Abscessus #IDSky #IDEpi

Northwestern has not received any NIH funds since March. No written communication about why or what can be done. Thank you Ben Singer for raising awareness at #ATS2025

Check out the MOVERR function in the pairwiseCI package for R.

Telomere bacteriophages are widespread and equip their bacterial hosts with potent interbacterial weapons Klebsiella host strains infected with telomere phages can grow to be the dominant lineage in mixed populations.

"That telomere phages are so prevalent means that they are a selective force, one that we know little about. We now want to understand how the telomere-toxin is secreted and also understand how this ‘telocin’ wheedles its way into unsuspecting bacterial neighbors”

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

A genome-wide One Health study of Klebsiella pneumoniae in Norway reveals overlapping populations but few recent transmission events across reservoirs - Genome Medicine Background Members of the Klebsiella pneumoniae species complex (KpSC) are opportunistic pathogens that cause severe and difficult-to-treat infections. KpSC are common in non-human niches, but the cli...

🦠Happy to share that our paper studying >3000 Klebsiella pneumoniae genomes in a #OneHealth perspective is now published in Genome Medicine! #MicroSky 🎉

@irenlohr.bsky.social @katholt.bsky.social

genomemedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....

His manuscript was rejected. Then he saw it published by other authors A chemist at a university in Pakistan found a surprise when he opened an alert from ResearchGate on a newly published paper on a topic related to his own work.  When Muhammad Kashif, a chemist…

From @retractionwatch.com -

His manuscript was rejected. Then he saw it published by other authors
retractionwatch.com/2025/03/06/p...

Its an excellent question because several other countries have been reducing the amount of money they invest in R&D. I know that here in Australia, funding to our 2 major grant bodies (ARC and NHMRC) has dropped, and there are fewer PhDs and postdoc positions available as a result.

Snippy: Microbial Variant Calling Community Survey Help us drive the next wave of innovation in Single-Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) discovery and genome analysis by sharing your valuable experiences and insights. This in-depth survey aims at understa...

🦘✂️ Thanks to @cziscience.bsky.social , @wytamma.bsky.social and I are writing the next version of the Snippy bacterial variant calling pipeline. We want your input on what features s it will have. Please fill out this (longish) survey to help make Snippy great again!
forms.gle/YJP6WQjsk8KK...

Are reads required? High-precision variant calling from bacterial genome assemblies Accurate nucleotide variant calling is essential in microbial genomics, particularly for outbreak tracking and phylogenetics. This study evaluates variant calls derived from genome assemblies compared...

New preprint is out!
We investigate how well you can call variants directly from genome assemblies compared to traditional read-based variant calling.

Read it here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Data & code: github.com/rrwick/Are-r...
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Plenary 3 -Prof Rachel Thomson
#NTM infection risk influenced by various #environmental factors, house dust, rainfall, temperature, aerosolisation from water to the air etc … so pretty much everywhere 😅
#antimicrobials2025 #IDsky #AMSSky

For everyone at #Antimicrobials2025 check out my supervisor Prof. Rachel Thomson's Plenary talk on Saturday, February 22 at 9:00 AM on Nontuberculous Mycobacteria #NTM Pulmonary Disease: Epidemiology, Clinical Disease and Natural History.

medical-school.uq.edu.au/research/ntm...

Katie Sandlin_ CV_v4.pdf | Powered by Box

Strong background in genomics and bioinformatics education and community engagement.

Currently located in Bethesda, MD.

Updated CV: app.box.com/s/hg5g6z05cz...

Advice from my therapist:

Limit media exposure.

Do good works.

That’s it.

Protect your mental health, friends.

🩷🧡💛💚💙💜

That sounds awful! 😬 I hate that NTM infections can be so difficult to treat!

Interested in protist parasites? Want to learn some fun bioinformatics? Think this apicomplexan looks cool? Great! Come and do some protist genomics at @uniofbath.bsky.social!

We're advertising a fully-funded PhD studentship open to UK & International applicants!

www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Thank you!

Literally need this crocheted! #EmotionalSupport #DumpsterFire #WorldIsOnFire

Our reference lab is a combination of culture, MALDI-TOF and PCR also.

www.atsjournals.org/doi/10.1513/...

Four novel nontuberculous mycobacteria species: Mycobacterium wendilense sp. nov., Mycobacterium burgundiense sp. nov., Mycobacterium kokjensenii sp. nov. and Mycobacterium holstebronense sp. nov. rev... Four novel nontuberculous mycobacteria were discovered from a historical strain collection at the International Reference Laboratory of Mycobacteriology at Statens Serum Institut in Copenhagen, Denmar...

New year, new publication! From @conmeehan.bsky.social and colleagues @tlillebaek.bsky.social ek.bsky.social and @micronorman.bsky.social describing four new species of Mycobacterium.