PRESENTER: Associate Professor Erica Donner (University of South Australia; ARC Future Fellow)
ABSTRACT: Antimicrobial resistance is designated by the World Health Organisation as a “global health security emergency” and the role of wastewater in the propagation and transmission of antibiotic resistant bacteria and their genes is rising rapidly on the international water management agenda. It is particularly pertinent in areas with a high degree of wastewater treatment and reuse as municipal wastewater treatment plants continually receive influents containing pathogenic bacteria and have been identified as potential “evolutionary hotspots” of antibiotic resistance development and transfer. This seminar will provide an introduction to the topic of antimicrobial resistance in environmental systems, with particular emphasis on the water cycle.
BIOGRAPHY: Erica Donner is an Associate Professor and ARC Future Fellow in the Future Industries Institute at the University of South Australia. Her research focusses on the environmental fate and effects of chemical and microbiological contaminants. Erica is a member of the European COST Action ES1403 Working Group on the ‘Microbiome and mobile antibiotic resistome in treated wastewater and downstream environments’ and leads a project funded by the South Australian Government investigating the sources and dynamics of antibiotic resistant bacteria and their genes in municipal wastewater, and their transfer and control during wastewater treatment and reuse.