In her first week on placement at The Guardian, Layal Liverpool has already published two articles in the newspaper reporting on recent scientific breakthroughs.

Layal Liverpool

The first article described research, which revealed that adding a small amount of mixed nuts to a man’s diet could boost fertility by increasing the quality and quantity of sperm produced. The results are based on a clinical study recently conducted in Spain.

Layal’s second article reported on a novel ‘immunobiotic’ which could be used to fight infections. Growing antibiotic resistance is a major concern for medical researchers who are now looking for new ways of eliminating infectious microorganisms. These new findings reveal a very different mode of action compared to conventional antibiotics. They are designed to alert components of the immune system to the presence of the bacteria, which will then come along and kill them.

The placement at The Guardian is part of a British Science Association media fellowship funded by the Society for Applied Microbiology, which Layal was recently awarded. Layal is being mentored at The Guardian by Ian Sample, Science Editor and Hannah Devlin, Science Correspondent. She will spend a further 3 weeks at the newspaper, continuing to develop her journalistic skills before returning to Oxford to continue her DPhil project.

We look forward to many more exciting articles from Layal over the coming weeks! Keep track of them as they are published, here.