World Health Day focus on antimicrobial resistance in food
On World Health Day (April 7), former Glasgow Caledonian University MRes Biological Science student Megan Rose Honnold has announced she will be presenting her research on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in food at an international conference.
Megan Rose, who specialised in Food Science and graduated last November, will be flying the flag for GCU at the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) ONE – Health, Environment, Society – Conference 2022 in Brussels in June.
This year’s World Health Day campaign is focused on ‘our planet, our health’ and the World Health Organization has deemed AMR to be one of the greatest threats to public health in the 21st century.
Megan Rose’s presentation to the EFSA ONE is titled ‘Assessing the impact of heat treatment on antimicrobial resistance genes, bacterial transformation, and bacteriophage transduction.’
She explained: “This research assessed the impact of heat treatment, modelled after the average core temperature of cooked meat products, on the viability of antimicrobial resistance genes (ARGs) and transmission of antimicrobial resistance through mobile genetic elements and vehicles of ARGs.
“AMR is an extremely prevalent problem throughout the world, especially within the food industry due to the use of antimicrobials in food-producing animals.
“Antimicrobial resistant bacteria have been isolated from food products, and contaminated food products have been shown to be routes of transmission of AMR from animals to humans.
“The World Health Organization has deemed AMR to be one of the greatest threats to public health in the 21st century. In light of World Health Day, it is extremely important to understand the role our food plays in the transmission of AMR and ARGs from animals to humans, especially post-cooking.
“I am very excited to present at the EFSA ONE conference later this year in June, as this research hopes to inform the food industry on the potentials of the transfer and spread of antimicrobial resistance within food matrices, especially post-cooking and as it pertains to home preparation and thermal processing critical control points (CCPs) within a food manufacturing setting.”