Roger Pickup is a Professor of Environment and Human Health at Lancaster University. His research interests lie in Environment and human health, with expertise in molecular microbial ecology/environmental microbiology.
  • The International Space Station photographed by a crew member onboard the space shuttle Atlantis. Credit: NASA

    Bacteria in space: why the International Space Station is riddled with ‘germs’

    Forget Ridley Scott’s Alien. There’s a new, real-life horror story in space. As one national newspaper headline warned this week, the International Space Station is ‘filled with germs’.

  • What will happen when antibiotics stop working?

    A golden era of antibiotics shifted the leading causes of death away from infection to cancer and cardiovascular disease. At the moment, we can still treat most infections as only a few are resistant to what is currently the last line of antibiotics – the colistins. But history shows us this will change and colistin resistance is already growing in China and the United States.