Healthcare science staff working in this field identify and characterise organisms with support and advice on the most effective drug to use for treatment. For example MRSA, clostridium difficile and norovirus infections.
Microbiologists work in diagnostic laboratories and pathology departments in hospitals and use a range of specialist culture and non-culture technologies and platforms, including molecular techniques such as Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) and Sequencing. They prepare cultures of micro-organisms and use a variety of tests and procedures to identify and classify organisms to help analyse and support the response to infection. Healthcare science staff in microbiology also play an important role in public health, in the control of infection.