Zannah Salter
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zannahdu.bsky.social
Zannah Salter
@zannahdu.bsky.social
340 followers 190 following 110 posts
Pathogen genomics, Ornithobacterium hominis, microbiome (and contamination of course!) at University of Cambridge
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zannahdu.bsky.social
September 15, 2025 at 5:34 PM
zannahdu.bsky.social
You never see Eppendorf frisbees anymore. I think I won this in a raffle??
A small white frisbee with a tatty sticker like the inside of an eppendorf centrifuge.
July 18, 2025 at 8:51 PM
zannahdu.bsky.social
I'm staining biofilms. Is there a better technical term I could use than "[purple] elephant ring"??
Double page spread from 1980s book "The Trouble With Elephants" by Chris Riddell. On the left, a girl and an elephant wearing a showercap sit together in an overflowing bathtub. Text reads "They spill the bath water when they get in...". On the right, the girl inspects the empty tub while the elephant towels off. Text reads "... and they leave a pink elephant ring when they get out".
July 7, 2025 at 10:17 PM
zannahdu.bsky.social
And EPAC!
A table mounted with various optics in the Extreme Photonics Applications Centre
July 2, 2025 at 5:57 PM
zannahdu.bsky.social
I saw it so I'm posting a flower: this extravagant fluffy poppy has appeared between the concrete slabs by my back door.
A large red poppy variety with extra puffball petals, growing near a red brick wall
June 1, 2025 at 4:34 PM
zannahdu.bsky.social
Meanwhile, I looked at how the microbiome differs between children who carry O. hominis (before and after acquisition), and children who don't.

The availability of a large 16S dataset, allowing us to curate a subset of well matched carriers/non-carriers, was a huge advantage here.
A multipanel plot showing a microbiome network (with tightly associated O. hominis subcluster), and stacked barcharts illustrating the co-occurrence of several other species with O. hominis.
May 25, 2025 at 11:31 AM
zannahdu.bsky.social
Fortunately we were able to use some prior 16S and metagenomic data to identify candidate samples from the enormous archive!

Postdoc Siobhan Brigg laid the groundwork and MSc student Celine De Allende took up the challenge: culturing, sequencing, analysing the genomes.
Alignment visualisation of LPS biosynthesis gene clusters from 9 genomes of Ornithobacterium hominis. 3 of the South African clusters are disrupted by a transposon also observed in Cambodia. Another 3 are identical to an LPS cluster from Thailand.
May 25, 2025 at 11:14 AM
zannahdu.bsky.social
I love this big biological relevance arrow @konstantinbe.bsky.social, can I borrow that idea for my next poster!! #Biofilms11
Close up of a scientific poster with a big blue arrow labelled "biological relevance", highlighting a key element of the results
May 14, 2025 at 12:16 PM
zannahdu.bsky.social
Sun rise over the May day morris at Wandlebury!

"The Devil’s Dyke Morris Men have danced on May Day at Wandlebury Country Park, just south of Cambridge, “since time immemorial”... i.e. the early 1980s" 😂

#cambridgeUK
12 morris men and 2 musicians stand in a circle in a grassy field, arms and hankies raised, as the sun rises behind them in a clear blue sky.
May 1, 2025 at 6:02 AM
zannahdu.bsky.social
Ooh I've found a CV of sorts. No shade on having lots of jobs (I've had a few myself) but I'm still none the wiser about how he squeezed in the bit where he saved millions of lives??
A paragraph on mayoral candidate Ryan Coogan's career: "starting with hands on work on local farms, including manual labour and tractor driving from a young age, coogan gained significant experience early on. He worked his way up through companies like Xerox and Sainsbury's, including a notable role in the team that opened the sainsburys store in Ely. Coogan has since run several local businesses spanning IT, eCommerce, PR, logistics, recruitment, animal health, and property. His career also includes extensive experience in health care, retail, transport, biofuels, and renewable energy power stations."
April 15, 2025 at 7:17 AM
zannahdu.bsky.social
Went to Roving Researcher showcase event today. On my way in everyone kept asking if I'd seen the massive photo... 😂
Me, a brunette woman with glasses, posing in front of a banner advertising the University of Cambridge Roving Researcher scheme in which I am looking down a microscope.
March 27, 2025 at 6:38 PM
zannahdu.bsky.social
Ooh I know this one! According to this book from my childhood, the tooth fairy collects teeth for her army of tooth elves to build her an enormous palace.
A page from "The Tooth Fairy" by Audrey Wood. Two children are led along a bridge by the tooth fairy, a tall blonde woman with pink wings. Green haired tooth elves use the teeth as bricks to build a tower of an enormous castle. The text says "bridges, walls, towers, all made of teeth. Every night we tooth elves build a little more".
March 26, 2025 at 6:55 AM
zannahdu.bsky.social
The Cambridge Festival is underway, an extravaganza of 500 public workshops, concerts, activities, exhibitions & talks, over a few weeks in spring.

I'll be part of the West Cambridge Family Open Day today! Come along for activities at the Vet School!

www.festival.cam.ac.uk/events/west-...
#CamFest
An advert for the Vet School open day: this Saturday 22nd March, we'll be opening our doors at 10am for a special open day, packed with hands on activities for families including: become a bat virus hunter! Find the DNA from fruit! Help us find the Vet School tasmanian devils! Meet some of our amazing students and see what they learn studying to be a cambridge Vet! Animal and bugs colouring! Collect stickers at each activity! Also our 2025 talk is: "not all bunnies are the same, discover the difference between the Easter bunny and a wild hare!" Presented by Dr Kate Hughes our very own pathologist, from 1-2pm in lecture theatre 2. Fun for all the family, no tickets needed!
March 22, 2025 at 7:04 AM
zannahdu.bsky.social
Please enjoy this wood pigeon "nest" we found in our garden this weekend. The pair have been hanging out on this spot all week... In the end they didn't even bother with twigs. I really don't understand pigeons!
A pigeon egg balances precariously on the wooden edge of a raised vegetable bed. From the child visible in the background, you can estimate that this "nest" is about 1ft off the ground. There are no twigs or anything.
March 16, 2025 at 7:14 PM
zannahdu.bsky.social
Exciting contaminant found in the back of the media cupboard!
A glass bottle of nutrient agar, pictured on a lab bench, containing a large, black, wrinkled fungus.
March 12, 2025 at 11:49 AM
zannahdu.bsky.social
Beautiful day for a rally in support of the Vet School, including Unions @cambridgeucu.bsky.social @unison.org.uk @unite0775m.bsky.social & BVU, students from CUVS, department staff, and the student union.
A woman with a loudspeaker addresses a crowd of people waving banners and signs in support of veterinary medicine at the University of Cambridge. It is a brilliantly sunny day and King's College is in the background. A man in a Unite union high viz jacket and bobble hat addresses a crowd with a loudspeaker. The crowd are holding placards including "Allow the 2026 intake", "Save the Vet School", "No to pause, yes to paws" etc. It is a bright sunny day and in the background stand King's College and the Old Schools buildings.
March 4, 2025 at 7:59 PM
zannahdu.bsky.social
We have an art centre nearby that does lots of schools outreach, and this is one of their excellent pamphlets for kids! "Brutalism for Beginners" which my little one came home with today 😂
An A5 leaflet featuring a greyscale photo of a concrete building. Playful stick figures are superimposed along with the title in capitals: "Brutalism for Beginners, for our younger visitors"
March 3, 2025 at 8:14 PM
zannahdu.bsky.social
Incredibly disingenuous statement (without apology to the people whose content they removed)

Meanwhile, some stuff is still missing. Like for example, their history piece on the end of slavery in the US.

"Honor the day" indeed
A tweet from ASM to "honor the day" of emancipation from slavery. It links to their page that is still apparently censored under Executive Orders.
February 4, 2025 at 9:34 AM
zannahdu.bsky.social
These guys lol. What was that all about #FOG2025
Chewbacca and Darth Vader pose in front of an X wing at the Excel centre. A scientific poster session is set up behind them.
January 29, 2025 at 7:04 PM
zannahdu.bsky.social
Wrapping up the day with @josiebryant.bsky.social - spatial microbial transcriptomics in the lung #FOG2025
Josie Bryant speaks on the Bacteria Bugs And Big Data stage at the Festival of Genomics and Biodata. She is showing a slide about the lung microbiome in chronic lung disease
January 29, 2025 at 5:59 PM
zannahdu.bsky.social
Wrapping up the day with @josiebryant.bsky.social - spatial microbial transcriptomics in the lung #FOG2025
January 29, 2025 at 5:55 PM
zannahdu.bsky.social
If you see this post, quote with a bridge from your gallery
The Bridge of Sighs, a Victorian gothic stone footbridge at St John's, Cambridge. Viewed from a punt on the river Cam.
January 23, 2025 at 10:44 PM
zannahdu.bsky.social
Spongebob rainbow meme says "show me the contaminants"
December 2, 2024 at 10:06 PM