Bacteria are everywhere - on us, within us, on and within animals and in our environments. Whilst most bacteria are harmless or in fact beneficial (like those in your gut), some can be harmful if given the opportunity. Antibiotic resistance is becoming an ever-increasing problem when treating bacterial infections in humans and animals, which makes it an important topic to study.

I am a postgraduate student working with the team on the One Health Selection and Transmission of Antimicrobial Resistance study (OH-STAR; http://www.bristol.ac.uk/vetscience/research/projects/ohstar/) where I will be further investigating how antibiotic resistance genes may be shared between humans, animals and the environment. The OH-STAR study focussed on E. coli, a bacterium carried by all animals, including humans, and looked at which strains of E. coli are found on dairy farms, which antibiotic resistance genes these E. coli  carried and how these may be related to strains and genes found in humans.

To build on this work, I am focussing in detail on a smaller geographical area in mid-Somerset and looking at a specific type of resistance gene. Initially I am collecting faecal samples from dogs in this area with the aim of finding out if resistance genes found on dairy farms may also be present in dog faeces.

This project is funded by the Medical Research Foundation’s National PhD training Programme in Antimicrobial Resistance Research. My project is supervised by Professor Matthew Avison and Dr Kristen Reyher.

Mid-Somerset dog owners - Get involved!

We are collecting dog faecal (poo) samples for our study and would like to invite you and your dog to take part in our research project. We will ask you to complete a short questionnaire and post me a sample of your dog’s poo (faeces) in a pot that we will provide. More details about the study can be found at Participation information sheet (PDF, 169kB). If you have any further questions please email me at Jordan.sealey@bristol.ac.uk