Project Description: 

Antimicrobial resistance is a growing public health crisis largely driven by the dissemination of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs). The co-occurrence of antibiotics, pathogens, ARGs, mobile genetic elements, and already resistant bacteria make conventional wastewater treatment facilities a high-risk environment regarding dissemination of resistance. However, there is no consensus on the abundance of antibiotics and ARGs in wastewater effluent. In this study, effluent from a conventional wastewater treatment facility in Oregon was sampled weekly for ten weeks to investigate variations of ARGs and antibiotics in time. Presence/absence of 7 ARGs and one class 1 integron gene were determined along with the concentrations of 20 antibiotics. 

Project Author(s): 
John Ste. Marie, Catherine Mays, Tyler Radniecki, Joy Waite-Cusic and Tala Navab-Daneshmand

Project Presenter(s): 
John Ste. Marie

YouTube Video Link(s): 
An exploration of antibiotic resistance and the time variance of antibiotics and antibiotic resistance genes in wastewater effluent