Antibiotic Resistance in Agroecosystems

When

to

Where

WRRC Sol Resnick Conference Room (350 N. Campbell Ave.)

Speaker(s)

Alistair B. A. Boxall
Environment Department, University of York, Heslington, York, UK,
Eddie Cytryn
Researcher, Volcani Center Institute of Soil, Water and Environmental Sciences, Bet Dagan, Israel
Drugs Down the Drain PPT
Presentation: Antibiotic Resistance in Agroecosystems: (1) Drugs Down the Drain: Impacts of Medicines in the Natural Environment; (2) Zooming in on Antibiotic Resistance in the Environment 
 
Date/Special Time: Thursday, Feb. 26 / 10:30 am - 12:00 pm 
 

(1) Drugs Down the Drain: Impacts of Medicines in the Natural Environment (Alistair Boxall)

We will probably all use pharmaceuticals at some stage in our life. Following use, pharmaceuticals are excreted into the sewage system and can then pass through sewage treatment plants into surface waters. As pharmaceuticals are biologically active molecules, in recent years there has been increasing interest from scientists and the general public over the potential impacts of pharmaceuticals on aquatic organisms and on humans that consume drinking water containing pharmaceuticals. In this talk, I will explain how pharmaceuticals move from humans to surface waters and drinking water supplies and discuss the implications of presence of pharmaceuticals in water bodies for ecological and human health. Solutions to minimize the impacts of pharmaceuticals on the environment will also be presented.

Alistair Boxall is Professor of Environmental Science in the Environment Department at the University of York, UK. Alistair’s research focuses on understanding emerging and future ecological and health risks posed by chemical contaminants in the natural environment. Alistair is a past member of the Defra Hazardous Substances Advisory Committee and was Chair of the Pharmaceutical Advisory Group of the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry. 
 
 

(2) Zooming in on Antibiotic Resistance in the Environment (Eddie Cytryn)

Although traditionally associated with clinical environments, there is a growing realization that antibiotic resistance is in essence an environmental phenomenon, with antibiotic genes seemingly originating in the soil microbiome. Nonetheless, there is strong evidence that anthropogenic activities such as wastewater effluents and biosolids, animal manure and aquaculture release residual levels of antibiotics as well as antibiotic resistant bacteria and genes and thereby contribute to antibiotic resistance in aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. Although circumstantial evidence indicates that antibiotic resistance transcends different environments implying the horizontal gene of antibiotic resistant genes, there is little evidence regarding how frequently this phenomenon actually occurs and whether there are specific phylogenetic, environmental and geographic nodes that shuttle resistance between different environments. This presentation attempts to provide a holistic overview of how external and intrinsic factors influence antibiotic resistance in the environment, specifically focusing on the soil resistome. 

Eddie Cytryn, PhD, is a researcher at the Volcani Center Institute of Soil, Water and Environmental Sciences in Bet Dagan, Israel. He completed his PhD in Environmental Microbiology at the Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Rehovot, Israel). Dr. Cytryn held a post-doctoral position with Professor Michael Sadowsky, Department of Soil, Water and Climate, and BioTechnology Institute, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, Minnesota.
 
Brown Bag