The #OnThisDay Team

The #OnThisDay project aims to assemble a collection of historically important microbiology events for every single day of the year. These events could be interesting discoveries, the dates of seminal scientific publications, the important moments in the lives of famous microbiologists, or anything that would pique the interest of the microbiology community!

The OnThisDay team research these facts and figures and then this important information is be digested into social media content for the purposes of science communication and and public engagement, as well as raising the profile of underrepresented scientists.

Current OnThisDayers

Abantika Ghosh

Country of residence: India

Short bio: Abantika Ghosh is a recent MSc Immunology graduate from the University of Oxford (2022) who also holds a BSc in Microbiology from the University of Calcutta. Her passion for microbiology began during her undergraduate studies, where she conducted multiple research projects on antibiotic resistance. Currently, she works as a Liquid Biopsy Technologist at Karkinos Healthcare, where she is focusing on the study of circulating tumour cells. Her current research interests revolve around the cancer-microbiome-immune axis. When she’s not working in the lab, Abantika enjoys volunteering, singing, reading books, and exploring different forms of painting.

Alicja Lewańczyk

Country of residence: France

Short bio: Alicja just obtained MSc in Medical Biology from the University of Gdansk (Poland). As part of her bachelor’s and master’s thesis, she studied toxin-antitoxin systems found in the phytopathogenic bacterium Dickeya dadantii 3937. Since then, prokaryotic TA modules and related interactions are her main scientific interest. Currently, her work is related to the control of toxin-antitoxin systems by molecular chaperones.

Atif Khan

Country of residence: India

Short bio: Atif Khan obtained his MSc from the School of Biotechnology, Banaras Hindu University, and currently working as a Scientist at Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, India. His current research is focused on the application of marine bacteriophages to control biofilm and biofouling in cooling water systems of power plants. He is also working on developing a phage bank to treat MDR infections in human patients. He has developed a big library of pathogenic and marine bacterial isolates and their bacteriophages in his lab for research. Apart from his research work, Atif enjoys traveling to new places, developing networking through social media, and using Twitter to get to know trending scientific research. He is working hard to develop awareness about bacteriophages and their applications in India.

Linamaria Pintor-Escobar

Country of residence: United Kingdom.

Short bio: Lina is a PhD student and Associate Tutor in the Biology Department at Edge Hill University. Her research focuses on finding novel antimicrobial compounds from actinomycetes isolated from underexplored environments. She is passionate about science, being a scientist and connecting with people about these topics. Outside her work in academia, she enjoys learning languages, dancing, travelling, and laughing with others.

Sarah Foster

Country of residence: Germany

Short bio: Sarah Foster is a research scientist at the University Hospital Tübingen working on tracking antibiotic resistance as part of the ECRAID-Base project. She studied physics and biochemistry at the University of Pennsylvania, did her PhD at Cambridge, and recently completed her first postdoc at the University of Tübingen developing imaging methods for studying the gut microbiome.  Outside her academic work, she enjoys learning languages and spending time outdoors, especially in the Mountains!

Srilakshmi Chidambaram

Place of Residence: Philippines

Bio: Srilakshmi Chidambaram is a university student currently in the second year of her MD. She aspires to work in pathology and public health in the future and is very passionate about the pathophysiology of disease. She fell in love with microbiology after performing her very first gram stain in agricultural school, and has been obsessed with the field ever since. Her research areas include biological agents, neglected tropical diseases and vector control. Free time is spent on long walks, mountain literature, collecting fossils, plane spotting and nursing her passion for Agatha Christie.

–

OnThisDayers 2022

Abeer Al-Ghouleh | Elizaveta Koroleva | Guillermo Dominguez Huerta | Maria Tsitouridou | Monika Oli

–

OnThisDayers 2021

Chiara Lonigro | Elizabeth (Tess) Deyett | Maria-Antonietta Buccheri | Susanna Gevorgyan | Swati Gupta

–

OnThisDayers 2020

Hermoine Jean Venter | Katia Djenadi | Marijana Sokolovic | Mohammed Antar | Waqas Ahmad

–

OnThisDayers 2019

Christina Pavloudi | Killian O’ Hara | Simone Krings | Sabrina Koch | Katharina Rosenbusch