TY - JOUR
T1 - A crowd of BashTheBug volunteers reproducibly and accurately measure the minimum inhibitory concentrations of 13 antitubercular drugs from photographs of 96-well broth microdilution plates
AU - The Zooniverse Volunteer Community
AU - The CRyPTIC Consortium
AU - Fowler, Philip W.
AU - Wright, Carla
AU - Spiers, Helen
AU - Zhu, Tingting
AU - Baeten, Elisabeth M.L.
AU - Hoosdally, Sarah W.
AU - Cruz, Ana Luíza Gibertoni
AU - Roohi, Aysha
AU - Kouchaki, Samaneh
AU - Walker, Timothy M.
AU - Peto, Timothy E.A.
AU - Miller, Grant
AU - Lintott, Chris
AU - Clifton, David
AU - Crook, Derrick W.
AU - Walker, A. Sarah
AU - Barilar, Ivan
AU - Battaglia, Simone
AU - Borroni, Emanuele
AU - Brandao, Angela Pires
AU - Brankin, Alice
AU - Cabibbe, Andrea Maurizio
AU - Carter, Joshua
AU - Chetty, Darren
AU - Cirillo, Daniela Maria
AU - Claxton, Pauline
AU - Clifton, David A.
AU - Cohen, Ted
AU - Coronel, Jorge
AU - Dreyer, Viola
AU - Earle, Sarah G.
AU - Escuyer, Vincent
AU - Ferrazoli, Lucilaine
AU - Gao, George Fu
AU - Gardy, Jennifer
AU - Gharbia, Saheer
AU - Ghisi, Kelen Teixeira
AU - Ghodousi, Arash
AU - Grandjean, Louis
AU - Grazian, Clara
AU - Groenheit, Ramona
AU - Guthrie, Jennifer L.
AU - He, Wencong
AU - Hoffmann, Harald
AU - Hoosdally, Sarah J.
AU - Martinhunt, M.
AU - Jarrett, Lisa
AU - Rathod, Priti
AU - Robinson, Esther
AU - Smith, Grace
N1 - Funding Information:
BashTheBug was supported by Welcome through the Enriching Engagement Grants scheme at the University of Oxford. This work was also supported by Wellcome Trust/Newton Fund-MRC Collaborative Award [200205/Z/15/Z]; and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust [OPP1133541]. This study is funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Health Protection Research Unit in Healthcare Associated Infections and Antimicrobial Resistance, a partnership between Public Health England and the University of Oxford. The research was also funded/supported by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Oxford Biomedical Research Centre (BRC). The computational aspects of this research were supported by the Wellcome Trust Core Award Grant Number 203141/Z/16/Z and the NIHR Oxford BRC. This publication uses data generated via the Zooniverse.org platform, development of which is funded by generous support, including from the National Science Foundation, NASA, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, UKRI, a Global Impact Award from Google, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, eLife Sciences Publications Ltd. All rights reserved.
PY - 2022/5
Y1 - 2022/5
N2 - Tuberculosis is a respiratory disease that is treatable with antibiotics. An increasing prevalence of resistance means that to ensure a good treatment outcome it is desirable to test the susceptibility of each infection to different antibiotics. Conventionally this is done by culturing a clinical sample and then exposing aliquots to a panel of antibiotics, Using 96-well broth micro dilution plates with each well containing a lyophilised predetermined amount of an antibiotic is a convenient and cost-effective way to measure the MICs of several drugs at once for a clinical sample. Although accurate, this is still an expensive and slow process that requires highlyskilled and experienced laboratory scientists. Here we show that, through the BashTheBug project hosted on the Zooniverse citizen science platform, a crowd of volunteers can reproducibly and accurately determine the MICs for 13 drugs and that simply taking the median or mode of 11-17 independent classifications is sufficient. There is therefore a potential role for crowds to support (but not supplant) the role of experts in antibiotic susceptibility testing.
AB - Tuberculosis is a respiratory disease that is treatable with antibiotics. An increasing prevalence of resistance means that to ensure a good treatment outcome it is desirable to test the susceptibility of each infection to different antibiotics. Conventionally this is done by culturing a clinical sample and then exposing aliquots to a panel of antibiotics, Using 96-well broth micro dilution plates with each well containing a lyophilised predetermined amount of an antibiotic is a convenient and cost-effective way to measure the MICs of several drugs at once for a clinical sample. Although accurate, this is still an expensive and slow process that requires highlyskilled and experienced laboratory scientists. Here we show that, through the BashTheBug project hosted on the Zooniverse citizen science platform, a crowd of volunteers can reproducibly and accurately determine the MICs for 13 drugs and that simply taking the median or mode of 11-17 independent classifications is sufficient. There is therefore a potential role for crowds to support (but not supplant) the role of experts in antibiotic susceptibility testing.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85134632183&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.7554/eLife.75046
DO - 10.7554/eLife.75046
M3 - Article
C2 - 35588296
AN - SCOPUS:85134632183
SN - 2050-084X
VL - 11
JO - eLife
JF - eLife
M1 - e75046
ER -