Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a serious and growing threat to public health world-wide.Resistant bacteria are not only found in clinical settings, but also throughout the natural environment.When antibiotics and antimicrobial compounds are consumed by humans or animals, they do not completely break down during metabolism and are excreted into the environment - whether that be via wastewater treatment plants, animal manure, aquaculture reservoirs, and water bodies. Antimicrobials and a range of other chemical pollutants have been observed to select for AMR in humans, animals, and environmental microbes. There is increasing interest in understanding where and why AMR pathogens persist in the environment.
For my PhD project, the objective is to characterize antibiotic resistance in wastewater using both analytical chemistry and microbiology techniques. In order to facilitate this, wastewater samples have been collected and preserved from over 150 wastewater treatment plants across Australia since 2016. Importantly, area specific demographics have also been collected for each of the wastewater catchments.
To characterize chemicals in wastewater that cause AMR, I am working on optimizing a analytical chemistry protocol whereby wastewater from these 150 sites is analysed to reveal novel compounds that cause AMR.
To characterize the microbial community in these wastewater samples, we will perform 16S metagenomic sequencing and whole genome sequencing to see what bacteria and resistance genes are present in the samples. This data will present an understanding of what resistance genes are prevalent across Australia and can be correlated to socio-economic demographics to identify drivers of antibiotics and antimicrobial use. While data collection is focused on Australia, such findings will have a large impact on further understanding the global challenge of antimicrobial resistance.