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Genevieve Schutzius, an M.S. student in the Navab lab, spent winter term 2018 in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam (HCMC) investigating antibiotic resistance in septic tank sludge and in environmental soils around the city as a result of antibiotic overuse and sludge dumping. In HCMC, almost all households use septic tanks, from which up to 75% of sludge solids are dumped directly into canals and agricultural fields in the area. Through a household survey, she and her Vietnamese colleagues found that an overwhelming majority (over 90%) of residents surveyed had obtained antibiotics easily without a prescription, and in sample collection she found considerable evidence of fecal contamination in the environment and discovered that over half of isolated E. coli harbored resistance to multiple antibiotics. Genevieve is continuing to investigate this resistance phenomenon using molecular methods and bench-scale microcosm studies, and she hopes the group's research will provide data that can be used to inform decisions on global antibiotic distribution and consumption in the future.

Click below to hear Genevieve talk about her project on the KVBR show "Inspiration Dissemination."