Infection Inspection Launching on Zooniverse February 7
Kapanidis Gene Machines Lab at the Kavli INsD has been working on a Zooniverse citizen science project as part of their antimicrobial resistance research aim. The Zooniverse project will launch to the public on Tuesday Februrary 7th in the afternoon. Please see the press release below.
“Peer through the microscope lens to help us spot antibiotic resistance!
Infection Inspection asks volunteers to look at images of bacteria we've captured on microscopes to determine if the samples are resistant or sensitive to an antibiotic. Antibiotics are life-saving medicines used to control bacterial infections. The number of bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics is increasing, which creates a big problem. By developing much faster tests for antibiotic resistance, we hope we can help clinicians select the best antibiotic to use much faster. Our technique is based on the changes in a bacterium's cell structure that can be seen under a high sensitivity microscope when it is exposed to antibiotics. Depending on the resistance of the bacteria, different responses are observed. We need you to look at pictures of bacteria and tell us if the changes indicate antibiotic resistance or sensitivity.
The images in the Infection Inspection project were collected as part of our research to develop a test for antibiotic resistance that uses machine learning to provide rapid and accurate results. We will use Infection Inspection to improve our models and provide a reference to how well the computer model can predict resistance compared to lots of human eyes. The project is funded by the Oxford Martin Programme on Antimicrobial Resistance Testing and is developed by a team of physicists, microbiologists, data scientists, and medics from the University of Oxford.
Get involved and give it a try! Visit https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/conor-feehily/infection-inspection”
