Project Objectives:
We hypothesise that antimicrobial production waste contains a highly chemically complex mixture of potentially antimicrobial compounds. We propose to use guided and unguided chemical analyses of production waste to quantify the levels of active antimicrobials being released, and identify the true chemical complexity of antimicrobial production waste. And we hypothesise that this chemical complexity leads to the presence of a large number of chemical entities selecting for resistance via pleiotropic. We propose to determine the ability of these chemical compounds to select for antimicrobial resistance in bacteria of clinical relevance to humans and animals.
To address these hypotheses, we will answer three key research questions:
1. What impact does antimicrobial production waste have on the diversity and abundance of microbial communities?
2. What is the exact chemical composition of antimicrobial production waste?
3. Which components of antimicrobial production waste can select for evolution of resistance to antibiotics?
Project webpage link: SELECTAR