Antimicrobial resistance is one of the most pressing global health concerns and threatens our ability to easily treat simple infections in both humans and animals. While antibiotics help protect animal health and food safety, strategies are needed to help reduce the risk of on-farm drug resistance. Combating antimicrobial resistance requires a multi-pronged and coordinated approach across industries, and support from cutting-edge research.
One key strategy involves monitoring the persistence and spread of antibiotic resistance genes (ARG) among microorganisms, while unravelling the impact of ARG on the environment and animal and human health. This surveillance is also essential for assessing the impact of interventions which may positively modulate the ARG repertoire in the animal microbiome, such as changes in diet, alternative antibiotic regimens, and products which increase bacterial sensitivity to antibiotics.
To create a healthier world, BaseClear supports studies aimed at characterising the diversity, function and composition of ARG in the animal gut. These critical studies are made possible with our dedicated whole-genome shotgun metagenomics pipeline, which provides metagenome assembly, open reading frame prediction, and gene annotation using dedicated databases such as CARD and VFDB.
We are dedicated to helping scientists get the most from their efforts by providing bioinformatics expertise, and guidance from study design through to analysis and reporting. Our databases and species-level shotgun microbiome analyses enable accurate taxonomic and functional insights into the microbial species in your samples, providing context to antimicrobial resistance research.
Get in touch with the BaseClear experts to discuss your specific project.
Chief Scientific Officer Alex van Belkum is a highly cited molecular microbiologist with extensive experience in molecular- and culture-based diagnostics, antimicrobial resistance testing and clinical microbiology. “I’m excited by how BaseClear can contribute further to developing solutions for global health challenges through data-rich technologies in clinical microbiology. The combination of Next Generation Sequencing technologies, culturomics and microbiome research has huge potential for the future.”
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