Grant: Research Tools and Instruments

In Canada, an estimated 17 billion liter/day of municipal wastewater 780,000 dry tonnes of sludge/biosolids were generated in 2015 from municipal wastewater plants (serving 25 million Canadians). The Canadian livestock also consumes more than 1.6 million kilograms of antibiotics every year, mainly to promote growth or to prevent diseases. However, about 90% of these antibiotics are not entirely absorbed in the intestine of animals, resulting in their release to the environment. Moreover, the microorganisms in the environment are also exposed to these antibiotics causing antibiotic resistance. Similarly, the healthcare facilities contributed a large proportion of overall loading for antibiotic compounds in municipal wastewater treatment plants (ciprofloxacin from long-term care homes and hospitals contributed 37% and 26.7%, respectively). For the last decade, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved 10 new antibiotic drugs to circumvent multidrug/antibiotic resistance, but their current concentrations and toxicity in the environment has not been explored. In fact, the costs due to the antibiotic resistance can run into tens of billions of dollars for Canadian citizens. This is a serious concern, as antibiotic discovery does not have a matching parallel path of study of their environmental effects and the effects which are exacerbated over time. ******The proposed research and tools instrument grant aim at the acquisition of advanced molecular sequencing using high-throughput sequencing integrated between Simpliamp Thermal Cycler, Ion Genestudio S5 System, and Ion Chef System. The proposed equipment does not exist at York University and researchers were mostly sending their samples in other laboratories for analysis. The proposed equipment will serve four main purposes: a) efficient, precise and rapid qualitative and quantitative Molecular sequencing from various matrices, such as wastewater, wastewater sludge, soils, water, and other environmental matrices; b) validation of various proposed antibiotic resistance, b) validate the developed Bioengineering technologies; and c) use these instrument to support several course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) at different departments at York University that involves students in novel scientific research. The requested advanced molecular sequencing system will be installed in innovative Water Technologies for Energy Research (iWaTER) laboratory that is running by the applicant other faculty members at Civil Engineering department. The equipment will be made available to the collaborating researchers and other researchers of Lassonde School of Engineering on priority and reservation basis in discussion with the laboratory manager who is responsible for all equipment in the iWaTER laboratory.