An Oregon State University (OSU) researcher will receive $2.35 million from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to explore what happens to antibiotics, antibiotic-resistant bacteria and their genes after they reach wastewater systems throughout the United States.
The work by Tala Navab-Daneshmand of the OSU College of Engineering is part of a $9 million federal effort to learn more about the resistance that pathogens develop to the drugs used to combat them.
The EPA describes antimicrobial resistance in the environment as a growing health concern, especially as bacteria and their antibiotic-resistance genes spread into surface water. The microbes and genes can travel freely among people, animals and the environment, and the result is that certain infections become less responsive to medicine.
Wastewater treatment facilities are a major receptor and source for antibiotic-resistant bacteria and antibiotic-resistance genes, the EPA says. The facilities collect a blend of pathogens, resistance genes and antimicrobial drug residues from a range of sources including industry wastewater, households and hospitals, all of which play a role in the high density of pathogens that reach a wastewater utility.