Institutional Partners

The RIVM harbors European experts on quantitative microbial risk assessment and microbial exposure modeling, as exemplified through the WHO collaborating center for Risk Assessment of Pathogens in Water and Food. Research into water quality has been a core issue of the center for zoonoses and environmental microbiology during the last >10 years, and the RIVM constitutes the national knowledge hub for this subject. Beyond water quality, the RIVM represents a highly interdisciplinary environment with a multitude of expertise in environmental microbiology and risk assessment in general. The RIVM has strategical partnerships with relevant Universities and intensively cooperates with other research institutes in the Netherlands, as well as with relevant Ministries and other stakeholders from private and semi-public sectors, such as water boards.

http://www.rivm.nl/

The UB team has been involved in more than 40 national/international research projects concerning the study of the environmental and clinical reservoirs of resistance and virulence; study of microbial biofilms and of their phenotypic resistance (tolerance) to antimicrobials, using patented in vitro assay methods; development of novel antimicrobial strategies. The team includes two postdocs with expertise in the phenotypic and genotypic characterization of beta-lactam resistance in Gram-negative bacteria, one postdoc with experience in the isolation of ARB from WWTPs samples and one PhD student performing her PhD on the investigation of ARB and ARGs isolated from surface waters.

http://icub.unibuc.ro/

Through the Centre for Antibiotic Resistance Research (CARe) led by Larsson, UGOT provides an integrated link to an interdisciplinary research environment with more than 80 scientists together addressing all thematic areas of the strategic research agenda of the JPI-AMR (diagnostics, surveillance, transmission, environment, therapeutics, and interventions). Larsson's own research group (+15 people) has particular experience in genomics, metagenomics and the interface between the external environment and the clinic. Larsson has worked with sewage effluents since the late 90s and has continued working with environmental pollution from within a medical faculty for the past 15 years, providing perspectives on the challenges from different angles through several long-term research programmes, UGOT has a strong network with many stakeholders from both the water and health sectors.

https://care.gu.se/

The LMU Institute for Occupational, Social and Environmental Medicine employs 40+ scientists from all different fields of occupational, social and environmental medicine. The Occupational and Environmental Epidemiology Unit (personnel 10+) has long-standing experience in coordination of and participation in national and international studies in occupational and environmental epidemiology. It coordinated e.g., the European Farmer Study (funded by EU), a study on respiratory health among European Farmers. In this study, we gained experience in the inclusion of small-scale working units (farms) in large-scale epidemiologic studies. Furthermore, sampling microbial exposure at the individual level was part of the exposure assessment. The Lower Saxony Lung Study and its follow-up targeted at exposure assessment and health outcomes including MRSA of ~6000 neighbors of concentrated animal production facilities (CAFOS) in different towns of Northern Germany. A PhD project of this group evaluated the potential short-term health impact of working in compost production sites. The unit is a founding member of LMU’s Centre for International Health, one of five centers of excellence in development cooperation funded by the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). The institute is WHO Collaborating Centre for Occupational Health. It cooperates with a large number of universities and research institutes throughout the world.

http://www.klinikum.uni-muenchen.de/