Access to Culture Collection

Within the Department of Medical Microbiology at Southmead is a collection of >40,000 bacterial strains, mostly isolated from clinical specimens, about 3000 of which were isolated from blood cultures. The collection contains significant numbers of all the following species:

Gram positive aerobic cocci:

Enterococcus faecalis, Enterococcus faecium; Staphylococcus aureus, penicillinase negative, penicillinase positive, methicillin resistant; coagulase negative staphylococci (various species); Staphylococcus saprophyticus; Streptococci of Lancefield Groups A, B, C, F and G; penicillin-susceptible and penicillin resistant Streptococcus pneumoniae; viridans streptococci.

Gram positive aerobic bacilli: Bacillus spp:

Corynebacteria spp; Listeria monocytogenes; other Listeria spp.

Gram negative aerobic cocci:

Moraxella catarrhalis; Neisseria meningitidis; Neisseria gonorrhoeae.

Gram negative aerobic bacilli:

Haemophilus influenzae, β-lactamase-negative and β-lactamase-positive; Citrobacter spp; Enterobacter spp; Escherichia coli; (ESBL producers and others); Klebsiella spp; Morganella morgani; Proteus spp; Providencia spp; Salmonella typhi, other Salmonella spp; Serratia spp; Shigella spp; Hafnia alvei; Aeromonas spp; Acinetobacter spp; Campylobacter spp; Pseudomonas aeruginosa (with multiple resistance mechanisms) other Pseudomonas spp; Stentotrophomonas maltophilia.

Anaerobes: Actinomyces spp:

Bacteroides fragilis, other Bacteroides spp; Bifidobacterium spp; Clostridium difficile, Clostridium perfringens, other Clostridium spp; Eubacterium spp; Fusobacterium spp; Lactobacillis spp; Peptostreptococcus spp; Prevotella spp; Propionibacterium spp; Porphromonas spp; Veilonella spp.