LSTM has been out in force this weekend at this year’s BlueDot Festival, at Jodrell Bank in Cheshire. This year was the first time the BlueDot Festival has been held since the COVID-19 restrictions were lifted and this unique festival combined music, art and science with expert talks, demonstrations, and debates which worked towards the festival’s mission to inspire, entertain and to celebrate cutting-edge science.
The three-day festival saw contributions from across the school with representation from the departments of Tropical Disease Biology, Clinical Sciences, and International Public Health at LSTM’s stand in the Tranquillity Base beneath the Lovell Telescope.
The first part of the weekend saw a team, led by Dr Adam Roberts Reader, Antimicrobial Chemotherapy and Resistance, engage the BlueDot audience with the Living Liverpool project. Living Liverpool is one of the many ambitious aspects of LSTM’s 125th anniversary celebrations, which will take place next year, and give the public the opportunity to hunt for the next new antibiotic! In collaboration with Everton in the Community, Living Liverpool are asking schools and the public to swab sites across the city of Liverpool throughout 2023 for LSTM scientists to create a living microbial map of our city! The LSTM team brought a preview of Living Liverpool to this year’s BlueDot Festival, to give the audience an opportunity to create a living microbial map of the festival site!
Christina Brown Inspire Tutor at Everton in the Community said “We had an exciting and inspirational day working alongside LSTM at the BlueDot, and gained an insight into some of the remarkable research they do!” with Mick King, Sport Education and Development Manager at Everton in the Community continuing: “I’m delighted we've been able to support LSTM at the BlueDot Festival. We are really excited by working with LSTM on Living Liverpool and bringing it into our communities.”
To end the weekend, LSTM’s Vaccine Research group and staff involved in the Liverpool Vaccine Equity Project including Dr Vicki Doyle took over the stand on the third and final day of the festival. The team presented elements of their pop-up photo exhibition of Liverpool’s local COVID-19 heroes which have been developed by communities for communities and reveal the motivation of the people who chose to get vaccinated in inner city Liverpool, where uptake has been low compared to other areas of the city.