Selection and transfer of antimicrobial resistance in animals and the environment CALL 2025/2026

Antimicrobial agents are extensively used in both human and veterinary medicine, generating increasing concern about their impact on the environment, including surface water, groundwater, soil, and biota. Among the key effects of these pharmaceuticals is the emergence and spread of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) within environmental microbial communities. Importantly, AMR can also affect human and animal pathogens, making it one of the most serious social and economic challenges for public health.
This research topic focuses on investigating AMR across diverse environments - such as livestock systems, soil, and water. Studies primarily employ molecular biology techniques, including real-time PCR and next-generation sequencing (NGS), applied to both whole bacterial genomes and metagenomes. These approaches offer in-depth insights into the entire collection of resistance genes (the “resistome”) in a given bacterial population or community.

 

Five publications related to the Research Topic for the candidate interview:

  1. Crofts T.S. et al. Next-generation approaches to understand and combat the antibiotic resistome. Nature Reviews Microbiology, 15 (2017), 422-434. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrmicro.2017.28.
  2. Cordoni G. et al. Comparative genomics of European avian pathogenic E. coli (APEC). BMC Genomics, 17 (2016), 960. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12864-016-3289-7
  3. Larsson D.G.J. et al. Antibiotic resistance in the Environment. Nature Reviews Microbiology, 20 (2022), 257-269. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41579-021-00649-x
  4. Ma F. et al. Use of antimicrobials in food animals and impact of transmission of antimicrobial resistance on humans. Biosafety and Health, 3 (2021) 32-38. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bsheal.2020.09.004
  5. Schages L. et al. Distinct resistomes and microbial communities of soils, wastewater treatment plants and households suggest development of antibiotic resistances due to distinct environmental conditions in each environment. Antibiotics, 10 (2021), 514. https://doi.org/10.3390/antibiotics10050514

 

Tutor: Prof. Alessandra Piccirillo
mail: alessandra.piccirillo@unipd.it