STS conference in Graz

By Salla Sariola

Charlotte Brives, Matthäus Rest and I organised a panel at the 17th STS conference in Graz. The panel, entitled Microbial Living in the time of Antimicrobial Resistance, included four great papers. All of them were based on new or established fieldwork of various multi-species encounters including microbes with various analytical foci: viruses, fermentation with bacteria and yeasts, faeces, and alternatives to antibiotics, as well as the practices by scientific groups researching them and communities using microbes to e.g. ferment and store foods.

Based on his work with the Heirloom Microbes, Matthäus Rest presented on Jordan’s vanishing dairying cultures, or: How to build a culture bank?

Charlotte Brives’s paper concerned her long terms work on Bacteriophages and living in the ruins of antibiotics.

Andie Thompson presented on the Black queen hypothesis in locating resistace.

My paper, co-authored with Elina Oinas, described encounters between different species during a vaccine trial in Benin.