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Our Champions Scheme allows members to promote microbiology and the Society in their local areas by providing funding and resources for a variety of activities. In Autumn 2025, Society Champion Georgios Efthimiou (Hull York Medical School, UK) organised a spooky story competition to coincide with World AMR Awareness Week and promote microbiology to the general public. Below, Georgios reflects on organising the competition.

Our Champions Scheme allows members to promote microbiology and the Society in their local areas by providing funding and resources for a variety of activities. In November 2025, Champion Nkechi Egbe (Nigerian Defence Academy, Nigeria) organised an outreach activity for school children in her local area, to promote World AMR Awareness Week, the Society and our Knocking Out AMR project. Below, Nkechi reflects on organising the activity.

We are pleased to announce that we are once again looking for members to join the Champions Scheme.

Boris Parra at the Universidad de Las Américas (UDLA) and Universidad de Concepción (UDEC), Chile, takes us behind the scenes of their latest publication 'Isolation, characterization and genomic analysis of a novel lytic bacteriophage EcoPhCCP1, capable of infecting multiple strains of multidrug-resistant Escherichia coli recovered from urinary tract infections', published in the Journal of General Virology.

Orthohantaviruses, such as the Puumala virus, is widespread in Europe, causing flu-like illnesses and severe kidney damage in those infected. It is increasingly considered a zoonotic threat. Researchers from the Medical Faculty of the University of Duisburg-Essen and the University Hospital Essen, Germany, have gained new insights into how these viruses alter the internal structure of their host cells. Their findings were published on 12 February, in the Journal of General Virology.

International Women’s Day takes place annually on 8 March with the aim of forging a gender equal world, free from bias, stereotypes and discrimination. This year, to mark the day, we caught up with a few of our Champions to discuss some of challenges of being a woman in science, as well as their biggest achievements.

Women’s History Month takes place every year throughout March. This year, to mark the occasion, we have an update and request from Champion, Dr Corrado Nai (Indonesia), who is creating a graphic novel about microbiology’s forgotten woman, Fanny Angelina Hesse (1850–1934). Fanny discovered that agar could be used to grow micro-organisms. You can read more about the idea behind the project in Corrado Nai’s previous blog: Creating a graphic novel about microbiology’s forgotten woman. 

The Microbiology Society was deeply saddened to learn of the death of Professor Jeff Cole, a long standing member who held many positions in the Society, including as General Secretary from 1979 to 1984. Most recently, he was serving as an Editor Mentor on Access Microbiology at this time of his death. He had also been an editor of the Journal of General Microbiology and later edited the Society’s symposium volumes in 1988 and 1993. Jeff was elected an Honorary Member of the Society in 2011.  In the same year, he was awarded one of the Society’s Prize Lectures and spoke about how bacterial physiology provides the key to understanding pathogenicity.

There’s a whole new slate of microbial discoveries to share with you all this month from the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology!

At Annual Conference 2026 we want to create an environment which is as welcoming and inclusive as possible for all of our delegates. Find out more below about what this might mean for you.

Cryptococcus neoformans, a pathogen fungi responsible for 112,000 deaths in 2020, is increasingly found in patients alongside the bacterial pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis. In the paper, published in the Journal of Medical Microbiology, researchers identify for the first time that interaction between the two microorganisms contributes towards worsened disease outcomes in those co-infected.

The Microbiology Society’s Microbiology Outlooks, launched in 2025, has published its inaugural article: “When Theory Meets Genomics: Reconciling Game Dynamics and Within-Host Evolution”. The new commentary explores how theoretical models and genomic data can be integrated to understand within-host evolution.  

In this month's Microbe Talk, Lilly chats with microbiologist Prof Wilhelmina Huston about what science knows so far about the relationship between the vaginal microbiome - the composition of microbes that live on and within the vagina - and sexual health, including her recent research investigating how the microbial composition of the vagina can impact susceptibility to painful conditions, like pelvic inflammatory disease (PID). We also cover current treatments and where the future of treatment of STIs and other sexual health disorders is headed.

Thanks to the support of subscribing institutions, the Microbiology Society is pleased to confirm that we have again met our sustainability target for the Journal of General Virology  and the Journal of Medical Microbiology  under the Subscribe to Open (S2O) model for 2026. All content published in these titles in the next year will be published as permanently Open Access (OA). 

For over a century, the cornerstone of modern medicine has been a simple yet profound truth: cleanliness saves lives. Infection control is not merely a hospital policy; it is the fundamental shield that allows complex surgeries and life-saving treatments to occur safely. However, as we move further into the 21st century, we are discovering that this shield is being challenged by the very nature of the microbial world we inhabit. 

The first Women Microbiologist Network session was held at Annual Conference 2025 as a member-led event hosted by Dr Enas Newire (Middlesex University, UK). The inaugural session, titled ‘Women Microbiologists in Academia: Challenges and Opportunities’ was well attended and received positive feedback from participants.  

We are delighted to announce the Hot Topic presentation at Annual Conference 2026 will be ‘What AI can and can’t do for antibiotic discovery’, given by Assistant Professor Jon Stokes on 16 April 2026 at the ICC, Belfast, UK. 

One month into 2026 and there’s no shortage of exciting new species at the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology to start our year off the right way!

We are pleased to announce that our new membership area is now live.

Dr Valérie Bouchez and Prof Sylvain Brisse at the Institut Pasteur in Paris, France, take us behind the scenes of their latest publication 'No innocent bystanders: pertussis vaccination and evolutionary parallelisms between Bordetella parapertussis and Bordetella pertussis', published in Microbial Genomics.