Jazz Conway  

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JAZZ CONWAY

AREA OF EXPERTISE: Microbiology/ Natural Product Discovery 

AFFILIATION: University of Plymouth (UK)

IMPACT

In 2022, during World Antimicrobial Awareness Week (WAAW) Jazmin Conway (University of Plymouth) organised a series of events to raise awareness of antimicrobial resistance. In this blog post, Jazz discusses the process of planning these events and how the Microbiology Society provided support throughout. 

Making waves
  • International day of women and girls in science – Jazz’s interview with Microbiology Society:

Q: Do you think more needs to be done to support women working in (or hoping to work in) science? 

A: I do! I think engagement with younger women and girls is extremely important to show them that science is a perfectly attainable career path. I think films and TV programmes like to portray a woman scientist as an extremely smart individual or a geek, which is completely inaccurate. 

I think showing young women and girls in schools that scientists are just normal, everyday people would increase the number of women within science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) massively. 

– Read the full interview >>

  • In this opinion piece Jazmin asks ‘Could deep sea mining destroy the treasure trove of biomedical compounds yet to be found?’ Where Jazmin discusses the importance of biodiversity within the deep sea and the natural products that can be sourced from these environments, to create new drugs – read here >>
  • Jazmin gives her insight into working in a laboratory discovering natural products (NPs). These are naturally produced chemicals that have a wide range of functions – those we are most interested in act as antimicrobial compounds. The main aim of the research is to explore deep sea flora and fauna as a potential source of novel NPs that could become the next antibiotics. Terrestrial bacteria have historically been a key source of antimicrobial NPs. Deep sea sponges harbour a multitude of unique bacteria due to the conditions they face daily and this can result in the presence of bacteria that are very different from those found on land, so they should produce novel NPs. The short video gives insight into what it is like to undertake a PhD in NP discovery and shows some of the laboratory processes used to discover new antibiotics.Watch a short film ‘The search for antibiotics’ ingredients with researcher Jazmin Conway’ – watch here >>
Recent publication

‘Physicochemical and Metagenomic Analysis of Samples from the Roman Baths (Bath, UK) Reveals High Bacterial and Archaeal Diversity and a Potential for Antimicrobial Discovery’ – read here >>

Artwork: Margherita Brunori