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My work is developing dressings for burn wounds, especially burns found in children, which are most commonly caused by hot drinks, i.e. tea. Everybody has heard about the rise of “superbug” infections. These are infections by bacteria that are not killed by the drugs we have been using for the past 80 years – we call them multi-drug resistant bacteria. A burn is at a high risk of getting infected, as it is a break in the skins defences that can let bacteria into the body. If bacteria enter the body this can cause fatal infections and complications.

The dressings that I work on cover the burn and help it to heal, but also are able to kill bacteria. They contain enzymes or other natural antimicrobials that act in the same way as antibiotics to kill bacteria and stop infection. These enzymes are better than antibiotics as ‘superbugs’ haven’t had a chance to become resistant to them.

A lot of my work uses bacteria (Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA is in this group)) which takes 18 hours to grow properly before it is ready to use. This means I have to plan most of my work in advance if it is anything to do with biology. The experiments themselves then take overnight again to work, so there is a lot of “waiting for things to grow”.

Whilst the biological experiments are happening, I then have time to do some chemistry! This frequently doesn’t work as well as the biology, but as a chemist I find it loads of fun anyway!