16th JPIAMR transnational call for research projects - AMR diagnostics and surveillance 2023 (DISTOMOS)

General Information

• Type: Partner looking for project
• Organisation: University of Warsaw
• Country: Poland (PL)
• Career stage: Other.

Research area

• Scientific area(s) of the call:
  1. Topic 2: to develop or improve existing strategies, technologies or methods, or data use strategies to support One Health AMR surveillance
• One Health Setting:
  Plants (incl. trees and crops)
  Food
  Environment (incl. natural and built)

• Keywords:

  One Health Approach; AMR: ARG ARB; horizontal AMR gene transfer; soil and water environment (biodiversity microbiome AMR); waste water treatment plants

• Brief description of your expertise / expertise you are looking for:

  I am the leader of a team that currently deals mainly with research on the mechanisms of resistance of environmental or endophytic bacteria to antibiotics and heavy metals. We have many years of experience in research in biotechnology, microbiology, physiology and bacterial genetics aspect. We focus on the study of antibiotic-resistant bacteria (ARB), determining the drug susceptibility profile and identifying resistance genes (ARG) located mainly on mobile genetic elements such as plasmids that can be disseminated in a given environment by horizontal gene transfer (HGT). The subject of the research are ARBs isolated from the natural environment, from soil, crops, water, breeding ponds, sewage treatment plants, and animal excrements: chicken, pig and cattle. In this context, we also analyze the composition of the microbiome of the above-mentioned environments and we study their physicochemical properties (PhP), which allows us to determine the existing correlations between biodiversity, PhP properties and the occurrence of ARGs. The studies carried out so far concerned the characteristics of bacteria resistant to antibiotics living in food products as well as from sewage treatment plants at all stages of treatment and the identification of their resistance mechanisms along with the analysis of resistance plasmids. The metagenome and resistome of arable soils and animal manures were also examined (international project INART: “Intervention of antimicrobial resistance transfer into the food chain - INART”, JPIAMR, Call 2017; 2018 – 2022, project manager in Poland: M. Popowska, completed in 2022). Currently, research is carried out as part of the international project: ANTIVERSA: “Biodiversity as an ecological barrier for the spread of clinically relevant antibiotic resistance in the environment”(BiodivERsA, Call 2018; 2020-2023, project manager in Poland: M. Popowska). An additional aspect of the conducted research is the search for specific antibacterial compounds produced by bacteria and fungi as a possible alternative to drugs in the fight against pathogenic bacteria.

• Brief description of your project / the project you would like to join:

  We are interested in collaborating on a project focusing of the identification of ARB occurring in different environments (especially soil, sediment, in the feces of farm animals and plants - endophytes) and their mechanisms of resistance (especially those located on mobile genetic elements) and of mechanisms of AMR dissemination and identification of factors promoting this phenomenon.

Magdalena Popowska

• Organisation: University of Warsaw
• Position: Associate professor
• E-mail: ma.popowska@uw.edu.pl
• Web: www.researchgate.net/profile/Magdalena-Popowska-3