US-UK Collab: Ecological and socio-economic factors impacting maintenance and dissemination of antibiotic resistance in the Greater Serengeti Ecosystem

细菌中的抗生素耐药性是人类和兽医面临的重大挑战。这个问题既是多方面的，也是全球性的。耐药性在地方范围内继续演变和扩大，而旅行和贸易给全球舞台带来了抗生素耐药性。这个项目将产生关于生态和社会经济因素影响抗生素耐药性特征命运的机制的关键知识，但目前还缺乏这些知识。这项研究将由一个具有分子生物学、疾病生态学、定量建模、社会经济和人种学专业知识的多学科国际小组在坦桑尼亚大塞伦盖蒂生态系统的三个不同生态区域进行。它包括来自美国华盛顿州立大学保罗·G·艾伦全球动物健康学院和人类学系；英国格拉斯哥大学和伦敦大学皇家兽医学院；以及坦桑尼亚野生动物研究所和区域兽医调查中心的研究人员。目标是了解社区内部和社区之间的连接模式如何影响抗生素耐药性，这些模式源于共享资源，如水；人口密度及其对人与牲畜之间互动的影响；以及通过社区间贸易进行的动物流动。核心假设是，抗生素耐药性在人和牲畜种群中的流行和多样性主要是通过在不同宿主种群内部和之间传播和持续耐药性来解释的，而不是通过直接使用抗生素来解释的，这导致了人和牲畜种群中相似的抗生素耐药性模式和基因库。将对来自30个研究社区的样本进行64,000个来自人、牲畜和野生动物的大肠杆菌分离物的抗生素耐药性表征和这些分离物的子集的分子表征。将在家庭和社区两级收集社会经济和人种学数据。除了提供有关抗生素使用行为的信息外，这些数据还将被纳入一个生态建模过程，该过程将调查耐药性特征的多样性及其时空分布和可能在水库之间传播的途径。该项目基于同时考虑人类和动物健康与福利的“同一健康”前提。这在农村社区尤为重要，因为农村社区的经济和粮食安全高度依赖牲畜的健康和福利。该项目的发现将对政策设计和执行产生直接影响，以控制抗生素耐药性的全球出现和传播，这是一项跨越国家和国际边界的挑战。该项目还支持国际研究合作以及对美国、英国和坦桑尼亚的博士后研究人员和研究生的培训。

Antibiotic resistance in bacteria is a significant challenge to both human and veterinary medicine. The problem is both multifaceted and global. Resistance continues to evolve and amplify at local scales while travel and trade bring antibiotic resistance to the global arena. This project will produce crucial but currently missing knowledge about the mechanisms by which ecological and socioeconomic factors impact the fate of antibiotic resistance traits. The research will be carried out in three ecologically distinct zones of the greater Serengeti ecosystem of Tanzania by a multi-disciplinary and international team with expertise in molecular biology, disease ecology, quantitative modeling, socio-economic and ethnographic disciplines. It includes researchers from the Paul G. Allen School for Global Animal Health and the Department of Anthropology at Washington State University in the United States; the University of Glasgow and the Royal Veterinary College of the University of London in the United Kingdom; and the Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute and the Zonal Veterinary Investigation Centre in Tanzania. The goal is to understand how antibiotic resistance is impacted by patterns of connectivity within and between communities, arising from shared resources such as water; population density and its effect on interactions between human and livestock; and animal movements via trade between communities. The central hypothesis is that the prevalence and diversity of antibiotic resistance in human and livestock populations is primarily explained by the dissemination and persistence of resistance within and between various host populations, rather than by direct use of antibiotics, leading to similar antibiotic resistance patterns and gene pools in human and livestock populations. Antibiotic resistance characterization of 64,000 isolates of E. coli from humans, livestock and wildlife and molecular characterization of a subset of these isolates will be carried out on samples from 30 study communities. Socio-economic and ethnographic data will be collected at both the household and community levels. Besides providing information about antibiotic use behaviors, these data will be incorporated into an ecological modeling process that will investigate the diversity of resistance traits and their spatio-temporal distribution and probable dissemination pathways between reservoirs.The project is based on the "One Health" premise that simultaneously considers both human and animal health and welfare. This is particularly important in rural communities where economic and food security is highly dependent on the health and welfare of livestock. The findings from this project will have direct implications for policy design and execution to control the global emergence and spread of antibiotic resistance, a challenge that transcends national and international borders. The project also supports international research collaboration and the training of postdoctoral researchers and graduate students in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Tanzania.