What does a healthy vaginal microbiome look like? Are store-bought vaginal probiotics backed by science? How do these microbes interact with sexually transmitted infections (STIs)?

🦠Research is uncovering more and more about the relationship between the vaginal microbiome and sexual health. That's why this month, I spoke with Prof Wilhelmina Huston, a microbiologist specialising in STIs at the University of Melbourne, Australia, to discuss what science knows so far.

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🔗If you’d like to read the review in Microbial Genomics you can do so by following this link https://microb.io/46tUCxa
A full, auto generated, transcript of the podcast is available on our website here https://microb.io/3M7M7B7

In this episode of Microbe Talk, we meet some members of staff at the Microbiology Society to reflect on 2025 and look at ways to get involved in 2026.

The relationship between humans and parasites is changing along with the climate crisis, globalisation, and innovations in science. In this month's Microbe Talk, we chat to expert Kinga Kowalewska-Grochowska at the University of Alberta, Canada, about the evolutions in how we look at parasites, where they are found, and what the future holds for diagnosing and treating these illnesses. This follows Kowalewska-Grochowska's latest review of the same topic published in the Journal of Medical Microbiology.

If you’d like to read the paper, you can do so by following this link.

Stay tuned to the Microbiology Society socials to be the first to hear about exciting new research in the world of microbiology.

You can download a full, auto generated transcript of the podcast here.