Grant: Canada-UK Partnership on Antibiotic Resistance - LOI

There is much concern over the worldwide threat of resistance to therapeutic antibiotics. The situation is such that some are speaking of a possible return to the pre-antibiotic era. Many factors contribute to the development of resistance, such as the overuse and misuse of antibiotics for human and animal applications. An important factor that is rarely considered is the disposal of antibiotics and antibiotic resistant bacteria within wastewater systems in urban and agricultural communities. Antibiotic resistant organisms/genes are widely distributed in urban wastewater systems; they are discarded without tracking or validation of the processes being used. We propose to profile the resistance genotypes for fluoroquinolones and ß-lactams (two widely prescribed antimicrobial classes) in clinical strains from two cities, Vancouver and Newcastle, and to use genetic methods to track the resistance genes from hospital effluent to waste water treatment plant. We will compare the usage rates of these antibiotics with the distribution and abundance of resistant organisms/genes and will show that effective monitoring using a combination of epidemiological, genetic, and microbial genomic techniques can identify the traffic patterns of resistance from hospital effluent to waste water treatment plant. Our objectives are to develop effective engineering and waste management procedures to prevent this unremitting contamination and so curtail the widespread antibiotic selective pressures. This would lead to significant reductions in antibiotic resistant populations in the environment.