Together, these experts' research spans human, animal, and environmental microbiome and AMR connections from the cellular level and metabolic cross-talk between microbial communities to the real-worls impact of AMU on the human gut microbiome.

I will be sharing the results of my study that looked at owner-dog households and evaluated whether we share antibiotic resistance with our pets and vice versa.

This is an interesting contrast to work published last year by Hackmann et al., which found that co-carriage of genetically indistinguishable MDROs between pets and owners was extremely rare(1/400). Sharing of ARGs obviously occurs, but transmission dynamics are notoriously difficult to sort out.

This session takes place on Canada's National Truth and Reconciliation Day as part of CAN-AMR-Net's commitment to Indigenous knowledge and engagement throughout its training programming.

Nevertheless, I am encouraged by the data. If prescribers of antimicrobials - across sectors - work together with their clients/patients, we can hopefully make some demonstrable progress in curbing the spread of AMR while still ensuring the health and well-being of humans and animals alike.

While my findings were not as dramatic or clear-cut as I had initially hoped they would be, they reinforce the notion that the etiology of AMR is complex as well as represent a starting point for future policy evaluation research (we need more data over time).

It's not often in the animal world that we get to evaluate the effects of an intervention, so it was really exciting to do a deep dive on this, especially since the antimicrobial use reduction was turned into prescription guidance that was adopted by the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association.