Antimicrobial resistance and pollutants: interactive studies and novel sensor technologies

抗菌素耐药性（AMR）是现代医疗保健的主要威胁。由于印度是人均抗生素使用量最高的国家之一，它面临着非常重大的挑战。现在还知道，在环境（例如水）中发现的耐抗生素微生物有助于耐药性的转移，有鉴于此，世界卫生组织的全球行动认识到水所发挥的重要作用。这里特别重要的是污染物促进抗菌素耐药性的方式。例如，水中的重金属与抗菌素耐药性有关。同样，三氯生等化合物的广泛使用（例如在肥皂、洗发水、牙膏中）正在导致抗生素耐药性发展为一系列临床重要抗生素。然而，人们对这个问题以及污染物与抗菌素耐药性之间的联系知之甚少。因此，我们有一个场景，在印度，我们有非常高的抗生素使用和AMR以及高水平的污染物，这将加剧问题。该提案汇集了由赫瑞瓦特大学领导的团队，包括世界领先的印度理工学院鲁尔基、印度理工学院马德拉斯、詹姆斯赫顿研究所和爱丁堡大学，建立了专注、积极和长期的跨学科合作伙伴关系。该团队将开发新型传感器来检测和监测污染物，重点研究AMR共选择器，以提高对这些污染物如何介导和影响AMR的理解，其中包括五个集成工作包：确定用于污染物预浓缩（可能从源头去除）和集成到传感器中的新型聚合物。WP2：开发新型传感器，以检测和监测重金属、抗菌剂和抗菌素耐药性基因。WP3：制造低成本的纸质污染物传感器。WP4：创建易于使用、强大、低成本的集成检测系统。WP5：开展案例研究，以确定印度和英国试验点的主要抗菌素耐药性基因和污染物水平，并验证检测方法的性能。作为我们影响和参与活动的一部分，我们将为最终用户提供信息和解决方案，帮助解决与印度水质问题相关的重大AMR问题。通过在整个团队中利用我们国际领先的科学和工程卓越的广度，团队将实施和部署负担得起的实用技术，并具有该领域研究人员所需的能力，帮助促进印度的可持续经济增长和福利。

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) represents a major threat to modern healthcare. Since India has one of the highest per capita uses of antibiotics it faces very significant challenges. It is also now known that antibiotic-resistant microbes found in the environment (e.g. water) contribute to the transfer of resistance and in recognition of this the World Health Organisation Global Action recognises the important role played by water. Of particular importance here is the way in which pollutants promote AMR. For example heavy metals in water correlates with AMR. Likewise the wide scale use of compounds such as triclosan (e.g. in soaps, shampoos, toothpaste) is leading to the development of AMR to a range of clinically important antibiotics. However this issue and link between pollutants and AMR is poorly understood. Thus we have a scenario where in India we have very high-levels of antibiotic use and AMR and high levels of pollutants that will exacerbate the problem.This proposal brings together a team lead by Heriot Watt University and includes the world leading Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, the James Hutton Institute and the University of Edinburgh, building focused, proactive and long-term interdisciplinary partnerships.This team will develop novel sensors to detect and monitor pollutants focussing on studying AMR co-selectors to improve the understanding of how these pollutants mediated and impact AMR with five integrated work-packages that willWP1: Identify novel polymers for pollutant pre-concentration (potentially removal at source) and integration into sensors.WP2: Develop novel sensors to detect and monitor heavy metals, antimicrobials and AMR genes.WP3: Create low-cost paper-based sensors for pollutants.WP4: Create easy-to-use, robust, low-cost integrated detection systems.WP5: Undertake case studies to identify the main AMR genes and levels of pollutant at test sites in India and the UK, and validate the performance of detection methods.As part of our impact and engagement activities we will provide end-users with information and solutions that will help tackle the significant AMR problem that is linked to India's water quality issues. By leveraging the breadth of our international leading science and engineering excellence across the entire team the team will implement and deploy affordable and practical technologies with the capabilities required by researchers in the field helping to promote sustainable economic growth and welfare within India.