Working Title: "Vegetables as a vehicle for AMR (vAMR): an agroecosystem exploration from One Health perspective in Ahmedabad, India"

Research Countries: India

Research Themes: Antimicrobial resistance (AMR), Food-chain, AMR genes (ARGs)

Biography:

Pachillu Kalpana has completed her Master's in Biotechnology and started her research career in Public Health with a desire to understand and engage in broader perspectives. Kalpana has a unique permutation of basic knowledge in science-based biology, laboratory skills, and work exposure to the community through multiple public health projects in her journey so far. Her research work focussed on strengthening Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene in Healthcare facilities incorporating microbiological surveillance and generating evidence of AMR transmission. In her doctoral study, she will be focussing on the transmission  of antimicrobial resistance genes (ARGs) across species within domains of One Health.

Abstract:

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has emerged as one of the leading threats to public health. AMR possesses a multidimensional (social, economic, and environmental) challenge encompassing the food production system, influencing human and animal health. The One Health concept captures this scope by providing an avenue for the inextricable linkage and interdependence between the health of people, animals, agriculture, and the environment. There is a dearth of evidence on AMR from the natural environment, such as the plant-based agriculture sector. Antibiotics, antibiotic-resistant bacteria (ARB), and related AMR genes (ARGs) are assumed to present in the natural environment and disseminate resistance to fresh produce/vegetables and thus to human health upon consumption. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the role of vegetables in the spread of AMR through an agroecosystem exploration from a One Health perspective in Ahmedabad, India. The proposed study will adopt a mixed-method approach. First, a systematic review will be conducted to document the prevalence of ARB and ARGs on fresh produce in South Asia. Second, agriculture farmland surveys will be used to collect the general farming practices and the data on common vegetables consumed raw by the farm-dependent households in Ahmedabad. Third, the vegetable and soil samples will be collected from the selected agriculture farms to analyze the presence or absence of ARB and ARGs using standard microbiological and molecular methods. The findings will be analyzed to understand the spread of ARB/ARGs through the agroecosystem. This is anticipated to provide an insight into the current state of ARB/ARGs contamination of fresh produce/vegetables and will assist in identifying the relevant strategies for effective control and prevention of the spread of AMR.

Supervisor(s):

PD Dr. habil. Christiane Schreiber (UKB)

Prof. Dr. Tanja Schneider (Uni  Bonn)