There are several laboratories that provide a variety of services to the Australian chicken meat industry, which includes the isolation and characterisation of bacteria from various samples collected on-farm or during processing. In some instances, characterisation of these bacteria may require additional information to be gathered to determine if the isolate is resistant to antibiotics. While there are standard methods for isolating, characterising and determining the antibiotic resistance profile of bacteria, there may be variations used within individual laboratories and varying levels of expertise that might impact on the comparability of the results at a national level.
The aim of this project is to identify all laboratories that provide services to the Australian chicken meat industry, establish the capacity of these laboratories to undertake isolation, characterisation and/or antibiotic resistance profiling of bacteria from chicken samples, and to determine whether there are any future plans to increase their capacity to isolate and characterise bacteria. The outcome of this project will inform the viability of a nation-wide collation and analysis of information, in particular, the antibiotic resistance profile of bacteria isolated from Australian meat chickens.
Project details
Project code: PRJ-010967
Principal investigator: Pat Blackall
Research organisation: University of Queensland
Project duration: August 2018 – July 2020
Related research
PRJ-010520: Antimicrobial stewardship framework – final report
PRJ-010520: Antimicrobial stewardship framework – project summary
Contact
Dr Pat Blackall, Associate Professor, University of Queensland, p.blackall@uq.edu.au
Learn more
Visit the AgriFutures Chicken Meat Program website.
