Risk and fate of antimicrobial resistance genes after sewage treatment by anaerobic digestion

Researchers from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Brazil, and Linköping University (LiU), Sweden, will perform exchanges and collaborate in developing strategies against antimicrobial resistance gene (ARG) spread from sewage.

Leonardo de Moura Lima, a post-doc from UFRJ, will spend 9 months at LiU, from early 2022 on, to run biogas reactor experiments aimed at finding strategies to reduce the risk of ARG spread. Prof. Renata Cristina Picão (UFRJ) will spend 3 months at LiU, split into one month in mid 2022 and two in late 2022.

There she will be trained on the setup and maintenance of a biogas research facility, share her knowledge of ARG analyses in sewage samples, share her experience from biogas industry in Brazil, and present advances in metagenomic analyses.DNA samples from the experiments will be sequenced in Sweden and analysed in Brazil.

The researchers from LiU (Dr. Alex Enrich Prast, Dr. Sepehr Shakeri Yekta, Dr. Magalí Martí Generó, and Dr.

Luka Šafarič) will each spend a total of 3 months at UFRJ, split into three trips (early 2022, late 2022, and mid 2023) where they will establish biogas research facilities, enabling continued collaboration between the groups. The Swedish researchers will also gain knowledge on metagenomic analyses and methodology for working with ARGs.

The exchange of knowledge and facility-building will support high-quality research on ARG spread prevention by using biogas reactors.