Public health research that’s crossing borders

In November 2022, Professor Wozniak, Professor of Microbiology at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (UC I Chile) spent two weeks at UTS with Dr Barbara Brito Rodriguez, Dr Mehrad Hamidian, and Distinguished Professor Steven Djordjevic.

With UTS, we are working in antimicrobial resistance in gram-negative bacteria of clinical interest in fields of epidemiology, bioinformatics and kinetic analysis.

Professor Aniela Wozniak (visiting fellow)

The collaboration first started in late 2018 when Dr Barbara Brito Rodriguez, a UTS Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow at the time, discovered UC I Chile’s strengths in medical research.

"After seeing UC’s diagnostic work at their laboratory and Chilean hospitals, and the need to sequence bacterial strains from Chile, it was really easy to see the synergies between UC I Chile and UTS", Dr Rodriguez says.

Although unable to conduct experiments together in person due to the pandemic, UTS imported a large number of clinical samples from Chile to sequence in Australia.

“I didn’t have any doubt in collaborating with UTS as it is a very well-known university,’ Professor Wozniak says, ‘I had colleagues who wanted to collaborate with other academics from UTS before too.”

Then the pandemic struck

Professor Wozniak was supposed to visit UTS in March 2020, but was unable to do so when the COVID-19 pandemic shut off international borders. 

Despite the time difference and distance, both teams maintained their collaboration online. They analysed sets of clinically problematic strains, looked at their genetic instructors and evolution of resistance, and compared this with strains from other countries in public databases. Fortunately, important bioinformatic and lab work was completed before pandemic lockdown measures were put in place. 

Although it posed undeniable problems, the pandemic also created opportunities to gain a better understanding of diseases.

“The use of antibiotics has elevated substantially, which means we should be able to see some sort of a shift in the complexity of the antibiotic resistance that's occurred because of COVID-19,” says Distinguished Professor Steven Djordjevic, one of the UTS host academics.

Long awaited results

As the threat of disease rises, so does antimicrobial resistance, making UTS and UC I Chile’s collaboration so important. 

“We contribute with data and information that help to make the decisions of people directly involved in containing the increase in antibiotic resistance”, Professor Wozniak says.

By comparing the evolution of clinical strains in their respective countries, this partnership has allowed both Chile and Australia to better understand antibiotic use.

Data that is relevant for Chile may also be useful for us to understand what might be currently happening and what could happen in Australia in the future,

Distinguished Professor Steven Djordjevic

Going forward

Professor Wozniak’s visit proved fruitful with meetings with PhD students, experiments in UTS labs and simply being able to work in the same collaborative space with UTS researchers. 

This collaboration has not ended yet, with both UTS and UC I Chile looking towards more publications, funding opportunities and joint PhD students.

Next steps also include trying to understand the impact of animal diseases on human antimicrobial resistance.

“A potential long-term opportunity is to engage with the recently established UC I Chile School of Veterinary Medicine,” says Professor Wozniak.

With so much more research to be done in both Chile and Australia, the future of UTS and UC I Chile’s collaboration is long and bright.

Professor Wozniak’s visit was co-funded by the UTS Key Technology Partnerships Visiting Fellow Program and UC I Chile.