Our lab is pleased to be part of a nationwide project led by the EPA and the Water Research Foundation investigating antibiotic resistance in wastewater influent and the receiving environment. 

 

Our role in the project is focused on estimating the degree to which WWTP effluent- and biosolid-borne antibiotic resistant bacteria (ARB) and antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) attenuate or amplify in the environment. To do this, we are sampling the treated effluent and the receiving waters at two advanced wastewater treatment plants in our area. We are then filtering for three types of bacteria, Escherichia coli, enterococci, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. We filter for both total and antibiotic resistant strains of these bacteria, and collect water for metagenomic analysis.

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This will give us an idea of how many ARB survive through treatment and are present in the receiving waters, and the metagenomic analysis will provide insight to ARGs in treated effluent and the environment.

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As part of this project, we created an instructional video on how to culture from water and sediment samples. ​