BashTheBug is a Zooniverse citizen science project I setup in April 2018 to help the large CRyPTIC tuberculosis (TB) consortium analyse the thousands of TB samples it is collecting over the next few years.

To determine its drug susceptibility and resistance profile, each sample is being grown on a 96-well plate that contains 14 different anti-TB compounds (including excitingly two novel compounds, delamanid and bedaquiline) at a range of concentrations. Analysing whether TB is growing or not in each well is a subjective task and therefore one that a crowd should perform very well at since although the consensus may be different to that of a panel of experts, the crowd will give beautifully consistent readings whereas a single expert will not.

To find out more, listen to this podcast by Oxford Sparks.