The long-term goal of my research program is to enable the proactive management and development of water monitoring tools through a comprehensive understanding of the microbial ecology of wastewater and aquatic environments in Canada for improved aquatic ecosystem health.
We are located in the Department of Microbiology, University of Manitoba.
Research:
We aim to fully study microbiomes, and particularly antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) to discover changes, persistency and possible connections/co-occurrences among them in wastewater and the receiving aquatic environment from urban and rural settings (including a First Nation community) of Manitoba.
Microbial Fingerprints
Develop microbiome fingerprints of wastewater treatment facilities to examine seasonal changes and perturbations following different treatment processes. We use longer reads (Nanopore Technology) in combination with bioinformatics/data visualization tools to capture the full spectrum of microbiome diversity and richness in urban and rural wastewater treatment facilities and the surrounding aquatic environment (including water and sediment).
Functional Metagenomics
Define the functionality of mobile resistome associated with wastewater facilities and their surrounding aquatic environments. We assess the contribution of mobile genetic elements via functional metagenomics. Although sequence-based metagenomics may provide deep insights of microbes present in aquatic reservoirs such as wastewater treatment facilities, it is unknown if genes or gene cassettes associated with a specific function, such as antibiotic resistance, is fully functional or not.
Investigate Selective Pressures
Investigate the impacts of disinfection process in bacteriophage ARGs and extent of ARG transfer from phages during conventional wastewater treatments. The role of phages in antibiotic resistance spread has been neglected and recent data stresses the importance of transduction in wastewater treatment facilities. The effect of a single stressor, UV-radiation (the most common disinfection method in developed nations), will be studied under controlled conditions using wild phages isolated from WWTP/OL prior to UV-disinfection.
Indigenous Land Acknowledgement and Traditional Knowledge
Work in close collaboration with a First Nation community and respect their culture and traditional knowledge. Every person in our laboratory working with a First Nation community has to take Ownership, Control, Access, and Possession (OCAP) workshop. We rely on the operators’ expertise and community members to collect samples that will be further analyzed in the laboratory. In this context, we present a report of microbiological water quality within 48 hours once samples have been collected in the community.
Microbes in the Aquatic Environment
Microbial markers can be used to detect microbial pollution in aquatic environments receiving effluents from wastewater treatment facilities. We study the distribution and changes that may occur in microbial taxonomic and functional profiles. We use a combination of sequence-based metagenomics, deep-amplicon sequencing and quantitative PCR to understand the occurrence, possible connections, prevalence and persistency between viruses, bacteria and microeukaryotes from urban and rural settings of Manitoba. We aim to build over time a local database of genes and genetic elements present in these reservoirs and surrounding environments that may impair source water (in downstream communities) and aquatic ecosystem health.
