Marguerite Clyne talks about research activities that she and collaborators are working on to try and elucidate which carbohydrate molecules present on mucin glycoproteins and on milk sugars act to prevent the bacteria Campylobacter jejuni, an important cause of food poisoning in humans, from causing disease. They are looking at sugars present on mucin purified from chicken mucus, as C. jejuni can live in chickens but the chickens do not get sick. Chicken mucins can prevent C. jejuni from interacting with epithelial cells. Interestingly, sugars present in the colostrum of cows can also prevent C. jejuni from entering the human cell. Current work aims to discover which sugars present in mucin and milk prevent C. jejuni from entering the cells. These sugars have the potential to be added as ingredients to certain foods in order to prevent infection against C. jejuni and possibly other bacteria that also cause disease.