The workshop took place in Porto, Portugal, on December 2-3, 2019, hosted by Célia Manaia and Ivone Vaz-Moreira at the Faculty of Biotechnology of the Portuguese Catholic University. The two days workshop was attended by 10 researchers in person from UCT (University of Chemistry and Technology Prague, TUDelft (Delft University of Technology), and UCP (Portuguese Catholic University). Additionally, guests from UW (University of Warsaw) participated in the workshop as well. Six other researchers from UCT, AAU (Aalborg University), and Wetsus (European centre of excellence for sustainable water technology) participated remotely by videoconference.
The workshop promoted the discussion about the most appropriate methodologies for monitoring antibiotic resistance in wastewater treatment plants, including sampling procedures, DNA extraction, antibiotic resistance genes quantification and/or detection using quantitative PCR or metagenomics, and data analysis and interpretation. After a very fruitful discussion of these topics, the experimental design of the first ring test was defined to be done between labs on the quantification of antibiotic resistance genes from environmental samples. The workshop participants listed some important questions that may be answered by the joint experimental research.