The following videos provide how-to demonstrations for skills used in the PARE modules and background to provide context.
- Basic overview of bacterial targets of antimicrobial compounds
- Antibiotics as providing selective pressure for natural selection
- Mechanisms of resistance (e.g. efflux, pumps, inactivation of the antibiotic, etc.)
- Introduction of One Health concept
- Bacterial/organismal spread (through water, food, soil, animals, etc.)
- Molecular spread (transmission of resistance genes from bacterium to bacterium)
- Explanation of how antibiotic resistance in the environment is linked to human health
- Conditions in low income countries that contribute to resistance
- Conditions in high income countries that contribute to resistance
- Interview with Dr. Maya Nadimpalli (environmental resistance in low income countries)
- Why the genes studied in PARE are of interest to clinicians (blaNDM-1, blaCTX-M-15, tetA, tetO, tetM, armA, and mcr-1
- What antibiotic is inhibited by each gene product
- Mechanism of resistance for each
- Molecular vs. culture-based approaches to environmental surveillance
- PCR-based vs. sequenced based molecular approaches
- The advantage of long-read, Nanopore sequencing technology for our work
- Interview with Dr. Amy Pickering
Skill-Builder Labs
Build skills for the research modules
This series of activities will help to prepare students to achieve more robust results with the authentic research modules. The activities include:
- How to use a micropipette and laboratory balance
- How to visualize sedimentation
- How to perform serial dilutions
- How to follow aseptic technique and perform plate spreading
- Determining the concentration of E. coli from a liquid culture
- Serial dilution
- Plate spreading
- Colony counting
- CFU calculations
- How to pour and load gels
Molecular Case Study
This skill-building lab represents a fictional case study of a very real problem. Students are presented with information regarding an outbreak of food-borne infection that is resistant to treatment with antibiotics. They are tasked with using PCR and gel electrophoresis to establish whether farms are at risk from antibiotic resistant bacteria that may be spreading in the environment. This known-outcome activity introduces students to the concept of environmental antibiotic resistance and is a great skill-builder to precede the “Identification of TetR Genes” (eDNA) molecular module.
Downloads
The most recent materials for this module (including instructor and student guide as well as teaching slides) can be found on the Curriculum Downloads page of the miniPCR Agricultural Monitoring Lab web page.
External Links
This module is a collaborative effort with miniPCR and is appropriate for high school and undergraduate classrooms.
Data Analysis Case Study
Data Analysis Case Study
Analysis of data to study emergence of TcR on farms
In this case study, students synthesize information from different studies to arrive at a model to explain how human antibiotic resistant infections may be linked to antibiotic use on farms. Students are introduced development of antibiotic resistance within a population of bacteria through natural selection and the “One Health” concept that recognizes how the health of people is connected to our environment and the health of animals. Importantly, the evidence does not prove causation, but conveys to students how an accumulation of evidence compels us to adopt a particular model. The concept of selective pressure is reviewed.
Downloads
Student worksheet with answers
Student worksheet (no answers)
Student handout (full story for instructors)
External Links
This case study is also part of the Great Diseases Infectious Disease curriculum.