Human Practices

Gold Criterion

Human Practices Gold Page

Our meeting at Food Standards Scotland was the first changing point on our project, where Dr. McElhiney suggested targeting infections at the animal source instead of targeting infected humans. We integrated her advice and changed the direction of our project towards fighting bacterial infections in animals.

To further our efforts into the sustainability of antibiotics, we were advised by Katherine Grace at the Veterinary Medicine Directorate (VMD) to pinpoint specific infections that our method could target, to explore real-world applications of the project. She advised that this would promote the benefits of our method more effectively than generally saying it can target bacterial infections.

To further the integration of safety concerns, we altered our design to include a lysis cassette and an endonuclease that are downstream of a bile salt promoter, on the feedback of Katherine Grace. This means that when our bacteria enter the intestine, the presence of bile salts causes the cells to lyse – preventing them from infiltrating the environment.