Team:Peking R/HumanPractice

(Difference between revisions)

Investigation of Antibiotic Use and

Related Biosafety Issues: What's

happening out there and further.

 

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In order to investigate the extent to which laboratories understand biosafety issues in regard to antibiotic use, we have carried out a survey involving about 150 participants (including researchers from laboratories in the College of Life sciences and College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering in Peking University, and employees at a few sequencing companies) who responded to a series of questions related with treatment of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the laboratory. (For the majority of the participants, who are non-English speakers, a Chinese version of the questionnaire was provided so that difficulties in understanding survey questions were minimized.)
According to the responses given by the number of participants who have responded, it may be concluded that, in general, laboratory researchers are aware of potential safety issues related with the use of antibiotic and resistance genes, but the level of awareness is far from sufficient for restricting laboratory work in a way that minimizes possible hazards as a consequence of microbes’ antibiotic resistance.
The first few questions look into the extent to which antibiotics and antibiotic-resistant bacteria (ARB) are employed in laboratory research. It may be seen that over eighty percent of laboratories use ARB for at least half of their experiments (Q2), and that approximately one fifth of them use bacteria with multi-antibiotic resistance (Q3). Therefore, there exists a large pool of antibiotic resistance that is foreseeable threats to the environment.
Question 2

Question 3

A.Mostly multi-antibiotic resistant(2.56%)
B.Half are multi-antibiotic resistant(17.95%)
C.Only a few are multi-antibiotic resistant(46.15%)
D.Almost none(33.33%)

The next set of questions investigates whether used or unwanted ARB is appropriately processed in laboratories.
The respondents all showed adequate levels of understanding in issues concerning possible threats induced by abandoned ARB in the laboratory. Almost equal proportions of respondents pointed out one of the four major consequences, respectively(Q9). Unfortunately, statistics revealed that over one third of the respondents reported that used ARB is never or only occasionally processed in safe and professional ways, and that a considerable portion of them has no special attention paid to the issue (Q5). Besides, results for Question 6 indicated that very few (<3%) laboratory researchers have been clearly informed of how laboratory waste should be processed in their department/organization. Even if they have somehow been informed, they did not pay much attention because they believed that laboratory waste is being appropriately processed. It is interesting that though people know that something like this may have negative effect on our life, they believe that there will be someone else to be responsible for such things. To make matters worse, more than half of the laboratories directly dispose of materials that have been in direct contact with microbes, while some others care little about the matter (Q8). This further adds to the potential danger of pollution and transfer of antibiotic resistance to microbes in the environment. Thus it seems that what is more urgent is not informing researchers of potential safety hazards of ARB but how to strictly and effectively regulate laboratory procedures to prevent these hazards. Most researchers know the consequences of their behavior, but few would take the time and effort to implement the right measures, probably because public health and environment have not yet experienced crises of sufficiently alarming levels, which we strongly wish, of course, to avoid.
Question 5

A.Almost always discard directly or pour into sewage(15.91%)

B.Usually discard directly and occasionally process them properly(22.73%)

C.Usually process them properly but occasionally discard directly(21.59%)

D.Always properly process them separately with other waste(23.86%)

E.No special attention has been paid(15.91%)

Question 6

Question 8

Question 9

In the final part of our survey, we try to look at the attitudes towards possible approaches to ensure biosafety related to ARB. Most respondents chose to employ proper procedures for processing used microbes in the laboratory rather than use special plasmids that minimize HGT(Q12). This is in fact a more rational choice as adopting special plasmids may lower researchers’ awareness of HGT and give rise to new threats. As to whether the government should implement new policies to regulate the processing of used ARB, most agreed, but some showed opposition(Q13) contending that it might be troublesome in determining the details and that still it would be difficult to make the policies work: the government is unlikely supervise the treatment of RAB every minute. Besides, we also wander whether the government will run the risk of impeding research progress by heavily punishing laboratories for violating these policies.
Question 12

Question 13

In conclusion, we would like to say that the regulation of antibiotics and ARB use is a matter much more complex than previously estimated. First of all, it is hard to accurately predict what exactly happens after HGT takes place, i.e., whether HGT confers the environment with genes that are useful or harmful to humans. Second, the establishment of regulations on ARB use and waste processing in different countries and regions will certainly encounter obstacles due to several concerns including financial support. Third, even if detailed and strict procedures are established, laboratories may not be able to discipline themselves and adhere to the standards. As we have seen above, the problem lies not in the understanding, but rather in the attitudes and determination to fight against the abuse and careless treatment of ARB. Besides, as current trends imply that an increasing number of participants without professional backgrounds in biology are involved in synthetic biology research, more challenges are posed to the insurance of biosafety. Professional researchers themselves may not strictly adhere to laboratory rules and restrictions, let alone non-professional participants.
However, nothing should become a reason for us not to battle against the public health hazards caused by ARB. We cannot afford to wait for greater outbreaks of superbugs or antibiotic-resistant pathogen infections before we build up our defense. We strongly suggest that special agencies or departments funded by the government be set up to collect and process used ARB in the laboratory. Laboratories should make it a rule to separate all used microbes and materials that have been in direct contact with bacteria or their DNA/RNA from other waste and hand them over to the ARB processing agency. They may also process waste by themselves, but must ensure that all of them are sterilized or treated with strong digestive solutions to break up the antibiotic resistance genes.

 

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