Dr Jake O'Brien

In his Kickstart project, Dr Jake O’Brien is investigating core residue detection methods and selected targets, laying the foundation for SAAFE’s advanced chemical monitoring.

Q: How is your research expertise linked to antimicrobial resistance (AMR)?

Jake: My PhD, from The University of Queensland, was on wastewater-based epidemiology with a focus on measuring chemical biomarkers in wastewater to understand the exposures of people who live in the relevant catchments.

I'm also one of the co-founders of the National Wastewater Drug Monitoring Program, which focuses on consumption of illicit drugs and drugs of abuse potential. Australia was the first country to establish an ongoing national wastewater surveillance program for illicit drugs.

As an NHMRC Emerging Leadership Fellow, I am investigating whether wastewater surveillance can also be used to monitor AMR and antimicrobial use in the general population. This has meant developing methods to measure antimicrobials and their metabolites in wastewater, determining which biomarkers are stable in the sewer (to understand if the chemical load we measure is reflective of what was consumed), and also measuring AMR genes. There are so many other things that we still need to understand before we can determine the overall suitability of wastewater-based epidemiology for monitoring AMR.

I also do research on what chemicals are leaving wastewater treatment plants, which can have environmental implications. For example, the agriculture industry might be reusing either the effluent or the biosolids. So it’s important that we understand what’s in wastewater so we can then conduct risk assessments or explore treatment technologies. On top of this, I lead projects to develop non-targeted analytical chemistry methods so that we can reliably identify more of the chemicals that either we or the environment are exposed to – and to predict their fate in the environment.

Q: What parts of your work do you find most interesting?

Jake: I get excited about developing methods to detect not just more chemicals in general but also what those chemicals become – so, their transformation products or their metabolites.

The other aspect is a field that I pioneered: linking the chemicals we see in wastewater with the socioeconomics and demographics of the catchment on a population level. That involves using resources like census data to better understand what’s influencing the chemical profile of wastewater from a particular area.

We can use a similar approach in our work with SAAFE to understand how and why industries differ in terms of their wastewater inputs and outputs.

Q: You’re working on a one-year SAAFE Kickstart project on chemical monitoring tools. What does that involve?

Jake: The Kickstart project is focused on understanding what chemicals we should be looking for in any monitoring programs. That’s not easy, because there are potentially millions of relevant chemicals and no one-size-fits-all detection method.

We’re discussing with SAAFE partners who the end users are and what information they need. It’s important that we also focus on industry-specific chemicals and the uncertainties and limitations of monitoring them. Once we know their priority chemicals, we can recommend the best or most appropriate technique for measuring them. That will be sample dependent – testing a soil sample is very different from analysing a water sample, for example. We need to consider any chemical and sample type that’s relevant to SAAFE partners.

I’m always interested in collaborating with industry. Most of my research already has industry as partners and end users – particularly the water industry. It’s claimed that chemicals are a driver for AMR, so to tackle AMR in agriculture, food and the environment, it’s important to include chemists in the projects.