Droplet detectives and sinks under siege: MMM at New Scientist Live!

How can bacteria spread from hospital sinks, and what can we do to stop them?

We recently took our research to New Scientist Live, where researchers from Modernising Medical Microbiology (MMM) ran two interactive activities exploring bacterial transmission in hospital sinks.

Over the course of the event, we spoke to more than 500 people, with children and families particularly keen to get involved!

Hospital sink drains and the pipework beneath them can provide an environment where bacteria grow. Some of these bacteria may be resistant to antibiotics and can pose a risk to patients if they spread into the surrounding hospital environment.

Our research looks at how this happens and what measures could help reduce the risk.

Droplet Detective: Where are the bacteria coming from?

Our first activity challenged visitors to become Droplet Detectives!

We brought along a mock hospital sink covered in invisible traces of Glo Gel, a fluorescent substance that glows under ultraviolet (UV) light.

Armed with UV torches, visitors searched the sink and surrounding surfaces to find evidence of contamination and work out where it had come from.

The culprit? The sink drain!

The activity demonstrated how bacteria living in the pipework and P-trap beneath a sink can potentially spread upwards and contaminate nearby surfaces, for example through splashing when water hits the drain.

This was particularly popular with our younger visitors, who enjoyed hunting for the hidden contamination and discovering just how far it had spread.

Sinks Under Siege: Can we stop bacteria spreading?

Our second activity, Sinks Under Siege, explored what we might be able to do to prevent bacterial transmission.

Using foam balls to represent bacteria, we demonstrated how contamination could travel between sinks and asked visitors to think about ways to interrupt its spread.

What would happen if we removed a sink? Could blocking the drain stop bacteria escaping?

Visitors could test these different interventions and see how changing the sink environment affected the movement of our foam-ball bacteria.

Although a simplified demonstration, the activity introduced some of the questions our researchers are investigating: how do bacteria spread from hospital sinks, and which interventions might be most effective at reducing transmission?

In some clinical settings, removing unnecessary sinks and using alcohol-based hand sanitiser where appropriate could help reduce opportunities for sink-associated contamination. However, sinks remain necessary for some clinical tasks and situations where handwashing with soap and water is required.

Bringing microbiology to life

We spent much of the event speaking with children and families, who were keen to get involved with both activities. The mock hospital sink proved especially popular, with plenty of enthusiastic detectives using UV torches to track down the source of contamination.

Speaking to over 500 visitors gave us a fantastic opportunity to explain how something as ordinary as a sink can play a role in hospital infection prevention, and to discuss how microbiology research can help make healthcare environments safer.

Both activities were developed and delivered by researchers from Modernising Medical Microbiology at the University of Oxford, as part of our public engagement work through Bash the Bug.

Many thanks to Medical Research UK for funding our stand at New Scientist Live and supporting the opportunity to share our research with the public.