17th JPIAMR transnational call for research projects - AMR Interventions 2024 (IMPACT)

General Information

• Type: Partner looking for project
• Organisation: CSIC
• Country: Spain (ES)
• Career stage: Other.

Research area

• Scientific area(s) of the call:
  1. Topic 2: Improve and/or, compare and/or evaluate strategies, technologies, treatments, methods, protocols or data collection based on existing interventions, aiming to prevent or reduce the emergence or spread of antibacterial or antifungal resistance or to treat/cure infections caused by resistant bacteria/fungi and recommend new policies.
• Subtopics:
  1. Improve and/or compare and/ or evaluate the effectiveness of existing interventions (e.g. cost effectiveness clinical utility, socio-economic adaptability, reducing AMR emergence, spread, transmission, treatment etc.)

• One Health Setting:
  Environment (incl. natural and built)

• Keywords:

  wastewater; antibiotics; antibiotic resistance genes bacterial degrading strains; biosolids

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

  Research Scientist in the CSIC since 2009 at the Institute of Natural Resources and Agrobiology of Seville (IRNAS). Specialising in the bioremediation of soils and sludge contaminated by toxic organic compounds, my scientific career begins with the study of the behaviour and dynamics of pesticides in the soil-water system. I deepened into the research for obtaining and characterizing inclusion complexes formed between the herbicide and cyclodextrins, as well as studying their application in soils, in order to determine their potential application as a biodegradable and environmentally friendly substance capable of achieving an improvement in the bioavailability of organic pollutants. During this stage, I made several stays at the ICQM in Barcelona, where I developed the fine-tuning of techniques related with the treatment of samples and their analysis, for the determination of agrochemicals and organic pollutants in soils and waters. I grew my competence in cyclodextrin environmental application in the department of environmental sciences of the University Of Lancaster (UK), for urban and industrial contaminated soils. As a postdoctoral fellow, I performed a stay at the CSL (York, UK), where I focused on determining the effect of time-related diffusion processes on achieving adsorption-desorption equilibrium, implementing a mathematical model that was effective in predicting the aging time of an organic compound in the soil, what would provide us with crucial information on the bioavailability of a pollutant over time. All this experience motivated the request for different projects within the Spanish research plan as principal investigator, which was entitled: "Aging and bioavailability of pesticide residues in contaminated soils and their modelling" and the project granted by the Junta de Andalucía within the call of projects of excellence and which was entitled: "Assessment of the toxicity of aged pesticide residues in contaminated soils". More recently, I was awarded a project as co-principal investigator in the call for the national plan of challenges for society with the title: "Use of chemical and biological methods for the reduction of organic pollutants in biosolids. Implications in their application as fertilizers on agricultural soils ". I am currently developing and optimizing molecular biology techniques applied to contaminated soils and sludge by emerging contaminants, for the detection of genes that encode specific degrading enzymes in order to determine their natural attenuation capacity, as well as the detection of antimicrobial resistance genes in environmental matrices with the aim of assessing their potential dissemination (group partner CSIC participation EU‐JAMRAI 2, Joint Action Antimicrobial Resistance and Healthcare‐associated Infections 2). Quality indicators: • Supervisor of 4 PhD, 9 end of course projects, 6 MSc completed theses and 6 JAE-Intro stays. • 55 articles in SCI journals, 90% in Q1, main author in 75%. • 4 contracts with private companies. • 6 R&D projects as principal investigator (from competitive calls). • Recipient of 5 competitive fellowships (2 from CSIC and 3 from MINEICO).• Active participation in 21 competitive R&D projects (6 from the European Commission JAMRAI2 ONEHEALTH CSIC, 8 from the MINEICO, 6 from Junta de Andalucía and 1 from CDTI-MICIN) 5 as principal investigator.• h-index: 26 (Scopus), 24 (WoS), 30 (Google Scholar).• Total citations: 2005 (Scopus), 1708 (Publons), 2815 (Google Scholar).• Over 80 communications to national or international conferences (8 as invited speaker).• Organizer of 2 scientific congresses and workshops.• Associate editor of Applied Sciences, impact factor: 2.7, Q2, Chemistry, Multidisciplinary. • Stays in research centres: i) 2002-2004 ICQMB-CSIC (Prof. Damiá Barceló); ii) 2004-2005 Environmental Sciences Department (Lancaster University, U.K.) (Prof. Kevin C. Jones); iii) 2005-2007 Central Science Laboratory (York University, U.K.) (Prof. Colin Brown). Scientific awards: i) Premio de investigación otorgado por la Fundación Farmacéutica Avenzóar (2001); ii) Premio Real Maestranza de Caballería de Sevilla (2009); iii) premio dirección mejor tesis en temas agrícolas Fertiberia 2023; iv) Premio tesis doctorales relevantes (CSIC, Primera edición 2021, Director). • Member of tribunals for competitive examinations for research scientists (CSIC). Calls 2015 and 2019. Outreach activities: director of the IRNAS seminar cycle for 6 years (2010-2015). Professor of the Training Conferences on advances in soil and plant analysis methods (1st-4th edition), organised by the International University of Andalusia. Coordinator and teacher in the course Organic Soil Matter at IRNAS within the CSIC training program. 3 publications in the dissemination journal, AGRICULTURA. Appearance in TV programs (https://youtu.be/liDseTGwGOk) and written press (https://www.lavanguardia.com).

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

  In wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) a broad range of organic contaminants is removed during biological and chemical treatments applied to wastewater. However, some of these contaminants remain adsorbed in the sludge, leading to its contamination by chemicals, pharmaceuticals, personal care products, hormones, and other organic pollutants. In Spain, approximately 1.2 million tons are produced per year, with the majority of these sludges primarily utilised in agriculture (80% of generated sludge), adding economic value to what is conventionally perceived as waste, contributing to the principles of Circular Economy. For biosolids generated in WWTPs applied in agriculture, variables such as pathogenicity or heavy metal content are regulated. However, there is significant concern regarding the content of organic contaminants, as they accumulate in agricultural soils, potentially contaminating surface and groundwater and even concentrating in plants and animals, posing a risk to human health. Therefore, it is expected that in the near future, more stringent criteria for the valorization of sludge in agricultural soils will be mandatory concerning the content of organic contaminants. Pharmaceuticals (PCs) constitute one of the most significant groups among the so-called "emerging contaminants" frequently found in WWTPs, as they are continually introduced into wastewater through human excretions. PCs, like other organic contaminants, can be partially retained in the sludge and may end up as pollutants in agricultural soils due to the application of sludge as organic amendments. Hence, the main objective of the project will be to achieve a reduction in the presence of PCs and their metabolites in sludge from WWTPs through a bioremediation process by the optimization of a technology that combines bioaugmentation, by adding specific degrading microorganisms, with sludge stabilization through composting techniques. A wide variety of PCs will be studied, including certain antibiotics whose presence in sludge involves two key aspects: i) isolating safe and effective microorganisms capable of degrading antibiotics, and ii) ensuring their viability without contributing to the spread of antimicrobial resistance in the environment. Reducing the spread of PCs in the environment, associated with the application of these biosolids to soils, will lead to lower contamination of crops. However, little is known about the behaviour and accumulation of PCs, including antibiotics, in the edible parts of plants and their entry into the human food chain. Therefore, a second objective of the project will be to determine the dynamics and fate of certain PCs frequently present in sludge for agricultural use and their main metabolites once they reach the soil, as well as to estimate their potential assimilation by plants entering the human food chain. These studies will be supported by the use of molecular tools, such as metagenomics, genomic and gene expression analyses, which will help assess the environmental risk associated with sludge and soils contaminated with PCs.

Jaime Villaverde

• Organisation: CSIC
• Position: Senior Researcher
• E-mail: j.villaverde@csic.es
• Web: ORCID ID: orcid/.org/0000-0002-8694-7929