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BashTheBug: a crowd of volunteers reproducibly and accurately measure the minimum inhibitory concentrations of 13 antitubercular drugs from photographs of 96-well broth microdilution plates

View ORCID ProfilePhilip W Fowler, Carla Wright, View ORCID ProfileHelen Spiers, View ORCID ProfileTingting Zhu, Elisabeth ML Baeten, View ORCID ProfileSarah W Hoosdally, View ORCID ProfileAna Luíza Gibertoni Cruz, Aysha Roohi, View ORCID ProfileSamaneh Kouchaki, View ORCID ProfileTimothy M Walker, Timothy EA Peto, Grant Miller, Chris Lintott, David Clifton, View ORCID ProfileDerrick W Crook, View ORCID ProfileA Sarah Walker, The Zooniverse Volunteer Community, The CRyPTIC Consortium
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.07.20.453060
Philip W Fowler
1Nuffield Department of Medicine, John Radcliffe Hospital, University of Oxford, Headley Way, Oxford, OX3 9DU, UK
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  • For correspondence: philip.fowler@ndm.ox.ac.uk
Carla Wright
1Nuffield Department of Medicine, John Radcliffe Hospital, University of Oxford, Headley Way, Oxford, OX3 9DU, UK
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Helen Spiers
2Zooniverse, Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
3Electron Microscopy Science Technology Platform, The Francis Crick Institute, London, UK
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Tingting Zhu
4Institute of Biomedical Engineering, University of Oxford, UK
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Elisabeth ML Baeten
5Citizen Scientist, c/o Zooniverse, Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
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Sarah W Hoosdally
1Nuffield Department of Medicine, John Radcliffe Hospital, University of Oxford, Headley Way, Oxford, OX3 9DU, UK
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  • ORCID record for Sarah W Hoosdally
Ana Luíza Gibertoni Cruz
1Nuffield Department of Medicine, John Radcliffe Hospital, University of Oxford, Headley Way, Oxford, OX3 9DU, UK
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Aysha Roohi
1Nuffield Department of Medicine, John Radcliffe Hospital, University of Oxford, Headley Way, Oxford, OX3 9DU, UK
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Samaneh Kouchaki
4Institute of Biomedical Engineering, University of Oxford, UK
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Timothy M Walker
1Nuffield Department of Medicine, John Radcliffe Hospital, University of Oxford, Headley Way, Oxford, OX3 9DU, UK
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Timothy EA Peto
1Nuffield Department of Medicine, John Radcliffe Hospital, University of Oxford, Headley Way, Oxford, OX3 9DU, UK
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Grant Miller
2Zooniverse, Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
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Chris Lintott
2Zooniverse, Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
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David Clifton
4Institute of Biomedical Engineering, University of Oxford, UK
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Derrick W Crook
1Nuffield Department of Medicine, John Radcliffe Hospital, University of Oxford, Headley Way, Oxford, OX3 9DU, UK
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A Sarah Walker
1Nuffield Department of Medicine, John Radcliffe Hospital, University of Oxford, Headley Way, Oxford, OX3 9DU, UK
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Abstract

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, thereby determining the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of each drug. Using 96-well broth micro dilution plates with each well containing a lyophilised pre-determined 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 an expensive and slow process that requires highly-skilled 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.

Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

Footnotes

  • - Added some final names to the CRyPTIC Consortium

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license.
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Posted September 13, 2021.
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BashTheBug: a crowd of volunteers reproducibly and accurately measure the minimum inhibitory concentrations of 13 antitubercular drugs from photographs of 96-well broth microdilution plates
Philip W Fowler, Carla Wright, Helen Spiers, Tingting Zhu, Elisabeth ML Baeten, Sarah W Hoosdally, Ana Luíza Gibertoni Cruz, Aysha Roohi, Samaneh Kouchaki, Timothy M Walker, Timothy EA Peto, Grant Miller, Chris Lintott, David Clifton, Derrick W Crook, A Sarah Walker, The Zooniverse Volunteer Community, The CRyPTIC Consortium
bioRxiv 2021.07.20.453060; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.07.20.453060
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BashTheBug: a crowd of volunteers reproducibly and accurately measure the minimum inhibitory concentrations of 13 antitubercular drugs from photographs of 96-well broth microdilution plates
Philip W Fowler, Carla Wright, Helen Spiers, Tingting Zhu, Elisabeth ML Baeten, Sarah W Hoosdally, Ana Luíza Gibertoni Cruz, Aysha Roohi, Samaneh Kouchaki, Timothy M Walker, Timothy EA Peto, Grant Miller, Chris Lintott, David Clifton, Derrick W Crook, A Sarah Walker, The Zooniverse Volunteer Community, The CRyPTIC Consortium
bioRxiv 2021.07.20.453060; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.07.20.453060

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