Name: Spit, Stigma & Superbugs
Start: 2025-05-19T19:00:00
End: 2025-05-19T21:00:00
Location: Milton Common

From the secrets of saliva to the smart use of plastics to fight pandemics, this session is all about outsmarting microbes! Discover how AI, chemistry, and public health innovation are teaming up to tackle gum disease, gonorrhoea, and viral outbreaks. It’s a fresh look at infection control—open wide and dive in!

Saliva testing: a simple way to detect and monitor gum disease

Pingping Han (Senior Lecturer, University of Queensland)

This presentation explains how saliva can be used to detect gum disease early and track how well treatments are working. Pingping's team are exploring what saliva can reveal about oral health, new testing methods, and how this simple, non-invasive approach can help improve gum health and overall well-being.

Plastics aren't all bad. Polymers to fight viral pandemics.

Dr Nathan Boase (Senior Lecturer, Queensland University of Technology)

The devastating impact of viral infections, and the very few treatments we have available, was made glaringly apparent during the COVID-19 pandemic. Nathan is using AI to repurpose chemistries used to create plastics, to discover new broad spectrum antivirals to protect against multiple diseases and potentially the next pandemic virus.

Tracking down gonorrhoea: finding and quashing the resistance

Olivia Jessop (PhD candidate, University of Queensland)

Gonorrhoea is on the rise and increasingly of public health concern, but treating it is harder than ever with antibiotic resistance on the rise. Particularly under tight public health budgets, and rampant social stigma, finding and treating the infections is difficult. Join us to learn how this microbe works, and new methods to efficiently find and stop its spread.

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