Preventing the development of antibiotic resistance in wastewater matrices by high energy irradiation

Our project aimed at investigating the applicability of high energy irradiation methods to eradicate any impact that antibiotics have on microbial population in wastewater matrices. Over the course of our study, the effect of solutions containing synthetic wastewater matrix along with antibiotics on a resistant -sensitive mixed bacterial population is taken under scrutiny after electron beam irradiation. As a result, we show that by appropriately optimizing the dose requirement, electron beam treatment appears to be a promising method to eliminate the biological activity of antibiotics and thereby achieve similar microbial population dynamics as it is found without the presence of antibiotics. Our results take us closer to our ultimate goal, developing technologies to tackle the evolution of antibiotic resistant bacteria in water reservoirs contaminated with antibiotics