Understanding Antibiotic Resistance in Sewer Biofilm, Sewer Sediments, and Wastewater through Field and Lab Studies

According to the World Health Organization antibiotic resistance is one of the biggest threats to public health. Untreated wastewater has received considerable attention with respect to its role as a pathway for antibiotic resistant bacteria to enter the environment while sewage collection systems have received considerably less attention. There is a motivation to understand in-pipe processes to protect sewage workers health, provide insight into how to decontaminate during an outbreak event, improve interpretation of sewage epidemiology data, and to better understand what is released during sewer over flow events.1 The objective of this research is to assess the prevalence and persistence and of bacteria carrying antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in sewer systems, their distribution across matrices (wastewater, sewer sediment, biofilm), and their susceptibility to disinfection treatments.