Pruden 0547342 This research opens a new paradigm of viewing biomolecules, such as ARG, prions, ricin, anthrax, etc., as "pollutants". Biomolecules such as these are of increasing health and security concern to society and this program will help to open new approaches to mitigation and treatment. Investigating ARG directly as pollutants using genome-enabled tools, rather than culture-based methods, is an innovative aspect of this research. For the past two years the PI has been studying the spread of ARG in the front range Colorado watershed, which provides an excellent model system for studying the impacts of pharmaceuticals in the environment because the primary source is snowmelt with minimal anthropogenic input. Thus the PI is uniquely poised to succeed in this research and to make significant contributions to the field. Institutional support is substantial, including newly renovated labs, reduced teaching loads, TA support, travel funding, and mentoring.
The intellectual merit of this project will provide a firm foundation for teaching, training and learning. New courses that integrate MB&B into the engineering curriculum will be further developed, evaluated, and improved. Inquiry-based learning and peer-learning with a laboratory component will be especially valuable for training engineers in an interdisciplinary field. MERGE activities will also specifically address the need for representation of women and minorities by focusing on topics that have been demonstrated to attract underrepresented groups. Graduate students will also benefit from MERGE by actively participating as mentors to undergraduate students and in taking the lead in publishing and presenting the results of their research. Furthermore, students will help organize K-12 STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) outreach activities. Results will be broadly disseminated through conducting workshops in partnership with other Colorado/Wyoming universities and with European collaborators (University of Barcelona and Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique). Finally, the overall results will be summarized as best management practices (BMPs), which will be a helpful practical guide to farming and water professionals. The activities are considered to be beneficial to society in that they will take an important step in involving environmental engineers in helping solve a critical problem that has been identified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as one of the most pressing health issues of this century.
