FARM WATCH: Fight AbR with Machine learning and a Wide Array of sensing TeCHnologies

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Poultry is the 2nd most important source of meat in China, with consumption rapidly increasing. To meet demand, poultry production has made extensive use of antibiotics. China is the largest user of antibiotics forfood production in the world (23%). Overuse of antibiotics has been accompanied by increased appearance ofantibiotic resistance (ABR) and zoonotic transfer to humans via direct contact, environmental contamination and food consumption. Effective and rapid diagnostics of bacterial infection in chicken farming could reduce the need for antibiotics, thus reducing ABR. FARM WATCH will identify and validate new diagnostic biomarkers for use in the Chinese chicken farming industry. The biomarkers will be designed to predict and detect bacterial infection, insurgence of ABR, and zoonotic transfer to humans, by combining heterogeneous information collected from the production line. They will be developed from a thorough understanding of theepidemiological pathways of infection, from large-scale collection of data and statistical modelling / data mining powered by machine learning and cloud computing.