From October 31 to November 2, China-UK Joint Workshop on Antimicrobial Resistance in the Environment 2016 took place in Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province. More than 70 scientists from China and UK attended the workshop. In the morning on October 31, Mark Bailey, Director of Center for Ecology & Hydrology(CEH), and Yong-Guan Zhu, Director of Institute of Urban Environment(IUE), Chinese Academy of Sciences(CAS), both gave opening speeches on behalf of their organizations. Mark Bailey said, China and UK are very concerned about the environmental problems in regard to Antimicrobial Resistance(AMR). He was very delighted to see scientists from both countries had launched extensive cooperation and acquired great achievements on AMR in the past a few years. Director Zhu also made a speech. He expressed warm welcome to all the guests and hoped scientists to take this opportunity to positively promote the environmental AMR research and obtain significant breakthroughs in the future. Subsequently, Graeth Taylor, Science & Innovation Consul of British Consulate Shanghai congratulated on the opening of the workshop, he expected China and UK can make effort to push scientific exchange and cooperation to a new level, and to find out the effective control way of AMR spread.

The workshop focused on issues that are of relevance to environmental regulators. Platform presentations and breakout discussions was guided by the following areas: 1) What are the fundamental chemical drivers and pathways for AMR in the Environment and how might these differ between the UK and China?; 2) What are the risks/potential impacts from these chemical drivers and pathways to the environment?; and 3) What knowledge gaps are needed to inform mitigation? Scientists separately gave wonderful plenary lecture and discussed in-depth around these topics.

“Chinese scientists pay close attention to the research of AMR in the environment and their papers published in the top academic journal such as 《The ISME Journal 》are very outstanding. China is now playing a leading role in the AMR research”, Mark Bailey said. “Nowadays, as the widely uses of antibiotic, the pollution of AMR is becoming more and more serious. The perspectives captured during the workshop will form the basis of a manuscript highlighting the knowledge gaps that need to be addressed to inform potential mitigation measures”, Director Zhu said.

This workshop was hosted by Jiaxing Municipal People’s Government, IUE and CEH, sponsored by Jiaxing Municipal Science and Technology Bureau, Jiaxing Academy of Agricultural Sciences and Zhejiang Huateng Animal Husbandry Co., Ltd.