Lancaster university researcher Alejandra Zárate Potes discusses a nursing notebook from 1902 as part of a series of local history podcasts and exhibitions to mark a hundred years of the city’s museums.

To mark the centenary milestone, a hundred objects housed across the city’s museums are being featured in weekly podcasts featuring local people, experts and museum staff.

Many of the contributors are from Lancaster University including Alejandra from the Department of Biomedical and Life Sciences in the Faculty of Health and Medicine.

She researches host-microbe interactions and innate immunity and chose the notebook as a way of looking at the evolution of medical knowledge.

She said: “I chose to talk about a notebook belonging to Mary Ellen Lund, a nursing student at the Storey Institute, written in 1902, when she was 17 years old. The notebook has notes on nursing practices including lists of antiseptics and disinfectants, how to handle poisonings, how to dress wounds and how to treat diseases such as influenza, consumption, and pneumonia.

“In the podcast we use the notebook to discuss the history of microbiology and the importance of discovering that infectious disease was caused by microscopic germs (microbes) that could be targeted with treatments to save lives. We also discuss how technological and scientific advances allowed us to discover that microbes are found everywhere in the environment and on our bodies, and that they play important beneficial roles in our health.”

Her research involves studying the function of the genes that are part of the immune system, which naturally fights microbial infection.

“I am interested in knowing how the immune system can distinguish between the harmful pathogenic bacteria and the beneficial bacteria that reside on our bodily surfaces and inside our gut. I am using the nematode model organism C. elegans to discover genes that have an immune function and aid in fighting off disease. Then, I test if these immune genes also have a role in the interaction of the animal host with beneficial bacteria. Nematodes are easy to grow in the laboratory and are perfect subjects to perform experiments to discover gene function. 83% of C. elegans proteins have similarity with human proteins. This offers a large chance of discovering new human gene and protein functions by studying the nematode.

“We are trying to understand the mechanisms through which the immune system and beneficial bacteria support health to integrate this knowledge in the way in which we treat disease and promote healthy ageing.

The podcasts can be found at Lancaster.gov.uk/100-years. They can also be found on Amazon Music and Spotify by searching for ‘Lancaster City Museums’.

The celebration year will culminate in November 2023 enabling local people to vote for their favourite objects, which will result in a ‘100 favourite objects’ exhibition.