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

General Information

• Type: Partner looking for project
• Organisation: Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Institute of Aquaculture and Environmental Safety,
• Country: Hungary (HU)
• 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.)
  2. Identify the barriers to uptake, including factors leading to the success or failure of previously run pilot interventions, and when applicable design solutions to overcome them.

• One Health Setting:

  Human Health

  Animal Health (incl. wildlife, livestock, acquatic organisms, and companion animals)

• Keywords:

  anthropogenic contamination; AMR; environment; hydrocarbon contamination; pesticides;

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

  The environment is an often-neglected element of the One-Health triad despite its significant role as a reservoir of living microorganisms, as a health mediator between animals and humans, and as the transformation media of chemicals. Environmental elements are continuously receiving anthropogenic loads of contaminants, triggering antibiotic resistance. At the same time, nature is still a potential source of new antibiotics to feed the pharmaceutical pipeline. The Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences (MATE), Institute of Aquaculture and Environmental Safety, Department of Environmental Safety is a pioneer in environmental antibiotic resistance research: our research group explored the link between hydrocarbon contamination and the occurrence of multidrug-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa (https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-009-9551-7), proved the role of groundwater, soil and compost as possible sources of antibiotic-resistant P. aeruginosa (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biortech.2010.08.027; https://doi.org/10.1080/09603123.2019.1691719), developed a new method for the virulence testing of environmental P. aeruginosa with various antibiotic resistance profiles using zebrafish microinjection (https://doi.org/10.3390/antibiotics12121740) and was the first who isolated carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter beijerinckii from an environmental sample (https://doi.org/10.1556/030.66.2019.004). One of our latest researches focused on the effects of pesticides on antibiotic resistance verifying that glyphosate and glyphosate-based herbicides (GBHs) induce phenotypic imipenem resistance in P. aeruginosa (https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-23117-9). Our recent focus is to understand the role microplastics (originating from wastewater and wastewater sludge) in the transmission of ARBs and ARGs. MATE has an extended network of partnerships across Hungary and Europe to reach stakeholders (e.g., wastewater treatment plants, aquacultures, farmers, research institutes and NGOs) to collect environmental samples and data. During decades of monitoring activity, our department developed one of the largest available private environmental collections of P. aeruginosa (n=240). Besides the examination, evaluation and monitoring of environmental antibiotic resistance in context with environmental contamination, our Department owns a notable (n=400) environmental collection of Streptomyces strains with verified biodegradation ability (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ibiod.2015.12.007) that is a potential source of new types of antibiotic agents and other bioactive metabolites.

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

  In line with our expertise as described above, we can participate in research and education tasks of the projects, and can even bring SME partners and demonstration sites into projects through our extensive network of contacts.

Julianna Kobolak

• Organisation: Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Institute of Aquaculture and Environmental Safety,
• Position: Senior Research fellow
• E-mail: kobolak.julianna@uni-mate.hu
• Phone: +36205433044
• Web: aquaculture.uni-mate.hu/