Surveillance of Antimicrobial Resistance in clinical infections from companion animals (VetCLIN AMR)
Antimicrobial stewardship is key for tackling the problem of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and for this to succeed, veterinary microbiology laboratories must provide comparable antimicrobial susceptibility data to support clinicians’ decisions.
The ideal combination of state-of-the-art Veterinary Microbiology Diagnostic Laboratory (VMDL) facilities and data surveillance (SAVSNET) has allowed the University of Liverpool to collaborate with the Veterinary Medicines Directorate (VMD) via a National Biosurveillance Network (NBN) project surveying AMR in bacteria from companion animal clinical samples.
Currently, there is no worldwide or national consensus for the use of common methodologies in veterinary laboratories with regard to performing and interpreting bacterial cultures from companion animal (CA) clinical specimens or for antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST), hampering the usefulness of these data for surveillance purposes.
Through collaboration with private veterinary microbiology laboratories across the UK, this project will work towards methodology harmonisation for bacterial culture, AST, and AMR screening. In addition, the project will generate harmonised and standardised AMR surveillance approaches and facilitate aligning AMR surveillance in the UK with methodologies proposed by the newly formed European AMR Surveillance Network in veterinary medicine (EARS-Vet).
Furthermore, the genomic and epidemiologic analysis built into this project will contribute to a better understanding of the molecular epidemiology of inter-species AMR transmission between humans and companion animals occurring through a shared environment. Corresponding projects under NBN are looking to collate data on AMR in bacteria from farmed animal clinical samples.
Members
| Principal Investigators | Research Staff | PGR Students |
|---|---|---|
| Professor Dorina Timofte (Project Lead) | Dr Shirley Bonner | Flavia Zendri |
| Professor Alan Radford | Dr Ashley Ward | |
| Professor Gina Pinchbeck | ||
| Dr P-J Noble | ||
| April Lawson | ||
| Flavia Zendri |
Exemplar publications from the team
Although not carried out as part of this project, these publications showcase some of the science that will be deployed.
Working with labs on AMR surveillance and genomics. Frontiers in Microbiology.
Resistance spread between dogs and humans. Antibiotics.
