Antibiotic Resistance in Wastewater Treatments

Theme
Wastewater Treatment, Measuring & Monitoring

Summary
Antibiotic resistance (AR) is considered as one of the major threats for human kind in the upcoming years. Antibiotic resistance genes (ARG) can be transferred among bacteria of different lineage through mobile genetic elements as plasmids during horizontal gene transfer events (e.g. conjugation). It might appear that AR only happens in clinical related area, but unfortunately that is only one of the scenarios. Within this project, we aim to study this phenomena in water related areas as Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). Those have been pointed out as hotspots that might enhance the gene transfer of ARG despite of achieving significant reductions in the microbial content. In order to further investigate this hypothesis, a monitoring sampling campaign in Harnaschpolder WWTP (water and sludge line) will be accomplished along the year 2017. The samples from the different stages will be analysed to quantify a panel of 10 highly relevant ARG by means of qPCR.

Results

Start of Research
February 2017

End of Research
February 2018

Researcher(s)
- Rebeca Pallarés
- Lucia Hernandez Leal
- M.C.M van Loosdrecht

Organisation(s)

- Wetsus
- TU Delft
- STOWA

Contact
Rebeca Pallarés
[email protected]