Using idle trucks to power the grid with clean energy

Waterloo researchers investigate how fuel cell powered vehicles can reenergize overworked electricity grids

Reports and Proceedings

UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO

University of Waterloo researchers are tapping into idled electric vehicles to act as mobile generators and help power overworked and aging electricity grids.

After analyzing energy demand on Alberta’s power grid during rush hour, the research proposes an innovative way to replenish electrical grids with power generated from fuel cells in trucks.

“Canada’s power grids need to be upgraded,” said Dr. XiaoYu Wu, lead researcher and a professor in Waterloo’s Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering. 

“But the price of Alberta’s power grid is much higher than other provinces. Most power is supplied by fossil fuels which results in high carbon emissions. The need to rapidly adjust generators to meet fluctuating demand is one of the reasons that the grid price is unstable and volatile. This creates the potential for clean energy storage to flatten the demand and price of electricity.”

The team's research builds on vehicle-to-grid technology which employs special chargers to push unused energy from electric vehicle (EV) batteries back to the power grid for storage. This electricity in-storage can support the grid during weather-related outages or to reduce the demand during peak periods.

The research proposes paying drivers of fuel cell powered trucks to rest during rush hour and while resting, to plug into a hydrogen refueling station or pipeline and use their trucks’ idle fuel cells as generators to provide electricity to the grid. The result is less vehicle traffic on highways, reduced energy use at peak times and cleaner way to store energy.

Waterloo graduate student Daniel Ding developed a mathematical model to simulate the operation, then used software to analyze and model the feasibility and potential of hydrogen fuel cell-powered electric vehicles to balance the grid load and decrease the peak price and carbon intensity.  

“Hydrogen fuel cells offer advantages over other fuels like batteries which require more investment and pollute more when you dispose of them,” Ding said. “Our preliminary findings show that using existing fuel cells in electric vehicles of the future can decrease costs on the grid.” 

This energy storage solution has application beyond trucks. Heavy-duty vehicles and trains — like switcher locomotives that typically are idled until they’re needed to change train routes — could also be early adopters. 

“With the increasing demand to decarbonize heavy duty vehicles, the fuel cell electric vehicle fleet is expected to expand rapidly,” said Wu. 

“Connecting these trucks to the grid for the peak-shifting purpose may provide economic incentives for adopting hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles and help facilitate the emergence of a large-scale hydrogen economy.”

The researchers’ next steps plan to test these preliminary findings in the lab and the field to determine its real-world applicability.  

The research is supported by the Transition Accelerator, Mitacs and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). It is the latest in Waterloo’s Sustainable Futures Initiative which aims to make the University a global leader in sustainability research, education and innovation to benefit the environment, economy and society.  

More information about this work can be found in the research paper, “Optimization of Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle-to-Grid in Alberta by Mixed Integer Linear Programming”, published in 2023 IEEE 11th International Conference on Smart Energy Grid Engineering (SEGE).

 

More than skin deep: A molecular look at the mechanisms behind pigmentation variation

A new collaborative study offers a better understanding of genes and variants responsible for skin color, providing insights into human evolution and local adaptation.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

 

IMAGE: 

SARAH TISHKOFF OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA LED A COLLABORATIVE TEAM OF RESEARCHERS WHO HAVE DISCOVERED KEY INSIGHTS INTO THE MOLECULAR BASIS OF SKIN COLOR DIFFERENCES AMONG AFRICANS. “THERE’S SO MUCH GENETIC DIVERSITY IN AFRICAN POPULATIONS, BUT THEY’VE ALSO BEEN HISTORICALLY UNDERREPRESENTED IN STUDIES,” TISHKOFF SAYS. “OUR FINDINGS OFFER MORE INFORMATION ON THESE POPULATIONS AND PAINT A CLEARER PICTURE OF HUMAN EVOLUTION.” PICTURED HERE: TWO KOESAN-SPEAKING MEN POSE FOR A PHOTOGRAPH. 

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CREDIT: SARAH TISHKOFF

Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania have discovered key insights into the molecular basis of skin color variations among African populations. Their findings, published in Nature Genetics, broaden the understanding of human evolution and the genetics underpinning contemporary human skin color diversity.

“Despite the abundant genetic diversity within African populations, they have been historically underrepresented in genetic studies,” says senior author Sarah Tishkoff, a Penn Integrates Knowledge University Professor with appointments in the Perelman School of Medicine and School of Arts & Sciences. “Our findings offer novel information about the genetic basis and evolutionary history of skin color diversity, contributing to a clearer depiction of human evolution.”

The story of human evolution is as rich and diverse as the adaptations found across the world’s populations, Tishkoff says. She notes that, among many adaptive traits, skin color stands out as one of the most well-known. Darker skin tones, prevalent in equatorial regions, serve as nature’s very own sunblock, evolving over millennia to shield these populations from the sun’s intense ultraviolet radiation. Conversely, lighter pigmentation, as seen in populations closer to the poles, is an adaptation to mitigate the risks of insufficient sun exposure by maximizing vitamin D production, which is triggered by UV exposure. 

Participants gather as Sarah Tishkoff (standing, right) details the purpose of the study. (Image: Courtesy of Alessia Ranciaro)

“Our approach involved genome-wide association studies of skin color from more than 1,500 eastern and southern African individuals as well as scanning the genome to identify genetic variants that are highly differentiated between lightly-pigmented Khoesan-speaking San population and other darkly pigmented Africans and may play a role in local adaptation in that population,” says Yuanqing Feng, first author of the paper and a postdoctoral researcher in the Tishkoff Lab.

The researchers note that pigmentation is a complex trait influenced by hundreds of variants scattered across the genome, with the majority situated in noncoding regions. These noncoding variants may affect the expression of genes located up to one million bases away. The vast number of mutations associated with skin color and the uncertainty surrounding the target genes regulated by these mutations make it particularly arduous for researchers to find the precise genetic mechanisms governing this trait.

Feng and collaborators used massively parallel reporter assays to discern the regulatory activities of thousands of variants. This high-throughput technique narrowed down the thousands of candidates to 165 functional variants. To identify the target genes of these functional variants, Feng further constructed high-resolution chromatin interaction maps in melanocytic cells using chromatin conformation capture assays. “This is a high-resolution 3D genome map in melanoma cells that will be valuable for gene regulation studies in pigmentation and melanoma biology,” Feng says. 

Using CRISPR/Cas9-based genome editing, the researchers discovered that mutations in an enhancer of OCA2, a gene associated with albinism, could lead to a 75% reduction in melanin levels when compared to control cells. Within the same OCA2 enhancer, the researchers identified two closely located regulatory variants, estimated to be 1.2 million years old and 57 thousand years old, with the latter coinciding with the period of human migration from Africa.

A member of Tishkoff’s research team draws blood from a participant to extract the genetic information that will inform the study. (Image: Courtesy of Sarah Tishkfoff)

“This case illustrates the continuous evolution of human skin color, and it’s remarkable to observe the significant effects on skin pigmentation attributed to a single enhancer," Feng says.

San people have relatively lighter pigmentation compared to other African populations and possess the oldest genetic lineages in humans. While it is hypothesized that the light skin color of the San may result from adaptation to a southern African environment, the genetic underpinnings of this adaptation remain elusive. The researchers pinpointed several crucial regulatory variants near MITF, LEF1, and TRPS1 that contribute to the skin color adaptation observed in the San.

“MITF, LEF1, and TRPS1 are involved in signaling pathways regulating both melanocyte differentiation and hair development,” Tishkoff says. “This suggests that the variants influencing the lighter skin pigmentation observed in the San people may also contribute to their distinctive hair morphology.” Notably, the variant near TRPS1 associated with lighter skin color is at nearly 100% frequency in the San and in most non-Africans, whereas the variant associated with darker skin color is common in most other African populations and in the darkly pigmented Melanesian population, a striking example of global adaptations to UV exposure.”

Additionally, the researchers found a novel gene impacting human skin pigmentation, CYB561A3, which regulates iron homeostasis and influences melanin levels in melanocytic cells. “To our knowledge, the role of CYB561A3 in skin pigmentation has not been reported before. Intriguingly, there have been reports linking intravenous iron infusion to skin hyperpigmentation. Given that CYB561A3 encodes an iron reductase, I am curious about the role of this protein in this process,” Tishkoff says. 

“Our findings underscore the complexity of genetic factors influencing skin color and the benefits of including ethnically diverse and underrepresented populations in genetic studies,” she says. “Conducting functional studies on the impact of noncoding variants will enhance our comprehension of the genetics underlying complex human traits and disease risk.”

“The populations included in this study are from remote regions of Africa and required the use of a mobile lab set up in the field sites,” Tishkoff says. “The collaboration with our partners in Africa was key to the success of this research project.”

In future research, the Tishkoff lab would like to use its innovative functional genomics approach to identify more genetic variants contributing to human pigmentation and other adaptive traits in a larger sample of ethnically diverse Africans.  

Sarah Tishkoff is the David and Lyn Silfen University Professor in Genetics and Biology and a Penn Integrates Knowledge University Professor with appointments in the Perelman School of Medicine’s Department of Genetics and Department of Medicine and in the School of Arts & Sciences’ Department of Biology at the University of Pennsylvania.

Yuanqing Feng is a postdoctoral fellow in the Tishkoff lab at Penn.

Other authors include Ning Xie, Chao Zhang, Fang Zhang, and Matthew E.B. Hansen of Penn; Fumitaka Inoue of Kyoto University; Shaohua Fan of Fudan University; Thomas Nyambo of Hubert Kairuki Memorial University; Sununguko Wata Mpoloka and Gaonyadiwe George Mokone of the University of Botswana; Charles Fokunang and Alfred K. Njamnshi of the University of Yaoundé; Gurja Belay of Addis Ababa University; Michael S. Marks of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Research Institute; Elena Oancea of Brown University; and Nadav Ahituv of the University of California, San Francisco.

This research was supported by the National Institutes of Health (grants R35GM134957-01, 3UM1HG009408-02S1, 1R01GM113657-01, 5R01AR076241-02, and 1S10OD010786-01) and the Penn Skin Biology and Disease Resource-based Center (Grant NIH P30-AR069589).

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JOURNAL

Nature Genetics

DOI

10.1038/s41588-023-01626-1 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Integrative functional genomic analyses identify genetic variants influencing skin pigmentation in Africans

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

10-Jan-2024

 

Year-end survey spotlights food safety, age-related consumer behavior, out-of-stock trends

Key differences in food sustainability and values emerge between generations

Reports and Proceedings

PURDUE UNIVERSITY

 

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SHARE OF CONSUMERS WHO ARE “SOMEWHAT LIKELY” OR “VERY LIKELY” TO DISCARD THE FOOD ITEM BASED ON DATE LABELS WITH AND WITHOUT SENSORY CUES, DECEMBER 2023.

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CREDIT: CENTER FOR FOOD DEMAND ANALYSIS AND SUSTAINABILITY

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Building off the previous month’s survey, the December 2023 Consumer Food Insights Report digs deeper into the relationships between food-date labels and the decision to discard food. The report also explores generational differences in food behaviors and reviews 2023 trends for out-of-stock items and common foods that people reported limiting in their diets over the year.

The survey-based report out of Purdue University’s Center for Food Demand Analysis and Sustainability assesses food spending, consumer satisfaction and values, support of agricultural and food policies, and trust in information sources. Purdue experts conducted and evaluated the survey, which included 1,200 consumers across the U.S.

In November, survey questions gauged perceptions of “use by” and “best if used by” dates. The data showed that sensory cues, such as smell and appearance, are important in the decision to eat or discard past-date food items. The December survey posed hypothetical scenarios where consumers were asked to decide about discarding or consuming a food item based on different information sets. These could include the date label alone or together with smell and appearance.

“The proportion of consumers who would discard food decreases slightly when they know the type of date label and that the food smells and appears ‘normal,’” said the report’s lead author, Joseph Balagtas, professor of agricultural economics at Purdue and center director. 

The December survey also assessed people’s concerns about the food in each scenario. “Approximately 30% and 45% of consumers indicate safety and taste, respectively, as a concern when eating foods one day past the date,” Balagtas said. 

As for food sustainability and values, Purdue researchers found sizable differences in their Sustainable Food Purchasing Index when separating the sample into generational cohorts: Generation Z, born after 1996; millennials, born 1981-1996; Generation X, born 1965-1980, and boomer-plus, born before 1965. 

“On average, consumers in the older Gen X and boomer-plus generations score higher on the index overall, primarily driven by high scores in the economic, taste and security subcategories,” Balagtas noted. “The Gen Z cohort scored the worst. However, younger generations, millennials in particular, score higher in the environmental and socially sustainable food purchasing dimensions.” 

The analysts see similar results in food values. Younger generations tend to put more weight on environmental impact and social responsibility when deciding which foods to buy. Older generations more often factor taste into their purchasing decisions. 

The December survey also showed that as food price inflation continues to decline, consumers similarly adjust their inflation estimates and expectations. Both decreased by half a percentage point from November.

“It will be interesting to see if this downward trend continues and consumers become more optimistic about food prices as we break into the new year,” said Elijah Bryant, a survey research analyst at the center and co-author of the report. “The expected food inflation rate over the next 12 months is the lowest it has been, 3.5%, since the survey’s inception two years ago." 

The data reveals differences in food spending by generation. “In particular, we see that the middle generations are spending the most per week on food for their households relative to younger Gen Z and boomer-plus consumers,” Bryant said.

Generational average weekly food spending 

Average weekly food spending by generational cohort ($), January 2022-December 2023.

CREDIT

Center for Food Demand Analysis and Sustainability

“A strong correlation between spending and household size suggests that the large spending gap is likely a result of having more mouths to feed,” he said. The proportion of boomer-plus respondents who share a house with more than one other person is smaller than the other generations.

December survey data also showed that food insecurity is consistently higher among young adults compared to older generations. The average food insecurity rate among the Gen Z generation is 32% compared to 18% for millennials, 14% for Gen X and 6% for the oldest boomer-plus group.

“This is likely a result of income differences. Previous research shows that the added work experience that comes with age tends to correspond with higher income levels. Food insecurity tends to hit those with lower incomes the hardest, so this result isn’t necessarily surprising,” Bryant noted.

Consumer trends in 2023 revealed that the average stock-out rates reported by consumers dropped from 18% to 14% compared to 2022. Last year, eggs were the most commonly reported out-of-stock food that followed the widespread 2022 U.S. avian influenza outbreak, which spilled into 2023. For more information about the outbreak’s impact on eggs, see the center’s Chew On This! blog post from last September.

“We also ask consumers each month if they have been limiting any food items from their diets,” Bryant said. “In 2023, the most common response consumers gave was sugar. It would be no surprise if reducing sugar intake makes it on the list of people’s New Year’s food resolutions this month.”

The Center for Food Demand Analysis and Sustainability is part of Purdue’s Next Moves in agriculture and food systems and uses innovative data analysis shared through user-friendly platforms to improve the food system. In addition to the Consumer Food Insights Report, the center offers a portfolio of online dashboards.

Writer: Steve Koppes

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METHOD OF RESEARCH

Survey

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Consumer Food Insights

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

11-Jan-2024

 

ChatGPT has read almost the whole internet. That hasn't solved its diversity issues

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA

AI language models are booming. The current frontrunner is ChatGPT, which can do everything from taking a bar exam, to creating an HR policy, to writing a movie script.

But it and other models still can’t reason like a human. In this Q&A, Dr. Vered Shwartz (she/her), assistant professor in the UBC department of computer science, and masters student Mehar Bhatia (she/her) explain why reasoning could be the next step in AI—and why it’s important to train these models using diverse datasets from different cultures.

What is ‘reasoning’ for AI?

Shwartz: Large language models like ChatGPT learn by reading millions of documents, essentially the entire internet, and recognizing patterns to produce information. This means they can only provide information about things that are documented on the internet. Humans, on the other hand, are able to use reasoning. We use logic and common sense to work out meaning beyond what is explicitly said.

Bhatia: We learn reasoning abilities from birth. For instance, we know not to switch on the blender at 2 a.m. because it will wake everyone up. We’re not taught this, but it’s something you understand based on the situation, your environment and your surroundings. In the near future, AI models will handle many of our tasks. We can’t hard code every single common-sense rule into these robots, so we want them to understand the right thing to do in a specific context.

Shwartz: Bolting on common-sense reasoning to current models like ChatGPT would help them provide more accurate answers and so, create more powerful tools for humans to use. Current AI models have displayed some form of common-sense reasoning. For example, if you ask the latest version of ChatGPT about a child’s and an adult’s mud pie, it can correctly differentiate between dessert and a face full of dirt based on context.

Where do AI language models fail?

Shwartz: Common-sense reasoning in AI models is far from perfect. We’ll only get so far by training on massive amounts of data. Humans will still need to intervene and train the models, including by providing the right data. 

For instance, we know that English text on the web is largely from North America, so English language models, which are the most commonly used, tend to have a North American bias and are at risk of either not knowing about concepts from other cultures or of perpetuating stereotypes. In a recent paper we found that training a common-sense reasoning model on data from different cultures, including India, Nigeria and South Korea, resulted in more accurate, culturally informed responses.

Bhatia: One example included showing the model an image of a woman in Somalia receiving a henna tattoo and asking why she might want this. When trained with culturally diverse data, the model correctly suggested she was about to get married, whereas previously it had said she wanted to buy henna.

Shwartz: We also found examples of ChatGPT lacking cultural awareness. When given a hypothetical situation where a couple tipped four per cent in a restaurant in Spain, the model suggested they may have been unhappy with the service. This assumes that North American tipping culture applies in Spain when actually, tipping is not common in the country and a four per cent tip likely meant exceptional service.

Why do we need to ensure that AI is more inclusive?

Shwartz: Language models are ubiquitous. If these models assume the set of values and norms associated with western or North American culture, their information for and about people from other cultures might be inaccurate and discriminatory. Another concern is that people from diverse backgrounds using products powered by English models would have to adapt their inputs to North American norms or else they might get suboptimal performance.

Bhatia: We want these tools for everyone out there to use, not just one group of people. Canada is a culturally diverse country and we need to ensure the AI tools that power our lives are not reflecting just one culture and its norms. Our ongoing research aims to foster inclusivity, diversity and cultural sensitivity in the development and deployment of AI technologies.

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DOI

10.18653/v1/2023.emnlp-main.496 

Researchers developing AI to make the internet more accessible

‘Web agent’ navigates complex websites using language commands

Reports and Proceedings

OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY

COLUMBUS, Ohio – In an effort to make the internet more accessible for people with disabilities, researchers at The Ohio State University have begun developing an artificial intelligence agent that could complete complex tasks on any website using simple language commands. 

In the three decades since it was first released into the public domain, the world wide web has become an incredibly intricate, dynamic system. Yet because internet function is now so integral to society’s well-being, its complexity also makes it considerably harder to navigate. 

Today there are billions of websites available to help access information or communicate with others, and many tasks on the internet can take more than a dozen steps to complete. That’s why Yu Su, co-author of the study and an assistant professor of computer science and engineering at Ohio State, said their work, which uses information taken from live sites to create web agents — online AI helpers — is a step toward making the digital world a less confusing place.

“For some people, especially those with disabilities, it’s not easy for them to browse the internet,” said Su. “We rely more and more on the computing world in our daily life and work, but there are increasingly a lot of barriers to that access, which, to some degree, widens the disparity.”

The study was presented in December at the Thirty-seventh Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS), a flagship conference for AI and machine learning research.

By taking advantage of the power of large language models, the agent works similarly to how humans behave when browsing the web, said Su. The Ohio State team showed that their model was able to understand the layout and functionality of different websites using only its ability to process and predict language. 

Researchers started the process by creating Mind2Web, the first dataset for generalist web agents. Though previous efforts to build web agents focused on toy simulated websites, Mind2Web fully embraces the complex and dynamic nature of real-world websites and emphasizes an agent’s ability of generalizing to entirely new websites it has never seen before. Su said that much of their success is due to their agent’s ability to handle the internet’s ever-evolving learning curve. The team lifted over 2,000 open-ended tasks from 137 different real-world websites, which they then used to train the agent. 

Some of the tasks included booking one-way and round-trip international flights, following celebrity accounts on Twitter, browsing comedy films from 1992 to 2017 streaming on Netflix, and even scheduling car knowledge tests at the DMV. Many of the tasks were very complex – for example, booking one of the international flights used in the model would take 14 actions. Such effortless versatility allows for diverse coverage on a number of websites, and opens up a new landscape for future models to explore and learn in an autonomous fashion, said Su. 

“It’s only become possible to do something like this because of the recent development of large language models like ChatGPT,” said Su. Since the chatbot became public in November 2022, millions of users have used it to automatically generate content, from poetry and jokes to cooking advice and medical diagnoses.

Still, because one website could contain thousands of raw HTML elements, it would be too costly to feed so much information to a single large language model. To address this gap, the study also introduces a framework called MindAct, a two-pronged agent that uses both small and large language models to carry out these tasks. The team found that by using this strategy, MindAct significantly outperforms other common modeling strategies and is able to understand various concepts at a decent level.

With more fine-tuning, the study points out, the model could likely be used in tandem with both open-and closed-source large language models such as Flan-T5 or GPT-4. However, their work does highlight an increasingly relevant ethical problem in creating flexible artificial intelligence, said Su. While it could certainly serve as a helpful agent to humans surfing the web, the model could also be used to enhance systems like ChatGPT and turn the entire internet into an unprecedentedly powerful tool, said Su. 

“On the one hand, we have great potential to improve our efficiency and to allow us to focus on the most creative part of our work,” he said. “But on the other hand, there’s tremendous potential for harm.” For instance, autonomous agents able to translate online steps into the real world could influence society by taking potentially dangerous actions, such as misusing financial information or spreading misinformation.

“We should be extremely cautious about these factors and make a concerted effort to try to mitigate them,” said Su. But as AI research continues to evolve, he notes that it’s likely society will experience major growth in the commercial use and performance of generalist web agents in the years to come, especially as the technology has already gained so much popularity in the public eye. 

“Throughout my career, my goal has always been trying to bridge the gap between human users and the computing world,” said Su. “That said, the real value of this tool is that it will really save people time and make the impossible possible.”

The research was supported by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Army Research Lab and the Ohio Supercomputer Center. Other co-authors were Xiang Deng, Yu Gu, Boyuan Zheng, Shijie Chen, Samuel Stevens, Boshi Wang and Huan Sun, all of Ohio State.

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Contact: Yu Su, Su.809@osu.edu  

Written by: Tatyana Woodall, Woodall.52@osu.edu

 

Antibiotic use is not the only driver of superbugs

Researchers have analysed the rise of antibiotic resistance over the last 20 years in the UK and Norway, highlighting that antibiotic use is not the only factor in the increase.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

WELLCOME TRUST SANGER INSTITUTE

For the first time, researchers have analysed the impact of antibiotic use on the rise of treatment-resistant bacteria over the last 20 years in the UK and Norway. They show that while the increase in drug use has amplified the spread of superbugs, it is not the only driver.

Researchers from the Wellcome Sanger Institute, the University of Oslo, the University of Cambridge, and collaborators, conducted a high-resolution genetic comparison of bacteria. They compared over 700 new blood samples with nearly 5,000 previously sequenced bacterial samples to answer questions about what factors influence the spread of antibiotic-resistant Escherichia coli (E. coli).

The study, published today (11 January) in the Lancet Microbe, shows that greater antibiotic use does drive an increase in treatment-resistant bacteria in some instances. However, researchers confirmed that this varies depending on the type of broad-spectrum antibiotic used. They also found that the success of antibiotic-resistance genes depends on the genetic makeup of the bacteria carrying them.

Recognising all the main factors behind antibiotic resistance can help build a deeper knowledge of how these bacteria spread and what hinders them. This could then better inform public health interventions that use a complete view of the environment to help stop the spread of treatment-resistant infections.

The bacterium, E. coli is a common cause of bloodstream infections worldwide.1 The type of E. coli responsible for these infections is commonly found in the gut, where it does not cause harm. However, if it gets into the bloodstream due to a weakened immune system it can cause severe and life threatening infections.

As an added challenge for healthcare providers, antibiotic resistance, in particular multi-drug resistance (MDR), has become a frequent feature of such infections. In the UK, over 40 per cent of E. coli bloodstream infections are resistant to a key antibiotic used in the treatment of serious infections in hospital.2  

Rates of antibiotic resistance in E. coli vary globally. For example, the rate of resistance to a different antibiotic, one commonly used to treat urinary tract infections caused by E. coli, ranged from 8.4 per cent to 92.9 per cent depending on the country.3

Antibiotic resistance has been a topic of research for decades, and the surveillance data from previous studies have consistently shown an association between antibiotic use and an increased frequency of MDR in bacteria worldwide, including in the UK.  

Previous studies have suggested a stable coexistence of resistant and non-resistant E. coli strains and in some cases, the non-resistant bacteria are more successful. However, previously it was not possible to assess the role of the genetic drivers of this due to the lack of unbiased large-scale longitudinal data sets.  

This new study, from the Wellcome Sanger Institute, the University of Oslo, and collaborators, is the first time it has been possible to directly compare the success of the different strains of E. coli between two countries — Norway and the UK — and explain differences based on country-wide antibiotic usage levels.

By analysing data that spanned almost 20 years, they found that the use of antibiotics was linked to increased resistance in some instances, depending on the type of antibiotic. One class of antibiotics, non-penicillin beta-lactams, were used three to five times more on average per person in the UK compared to Norway. This has led to a higher incidence of infections by a certain multi-drug resistant E. coli strain.

However, the UK also uses the antibiotic trimethoprim more often, but analysis did not uncover higher levels of resistance in the UK when comparing the common E. coli strains found in both countries.   

The study found that the survival of MDR bacteria depended on what strains of E. coli were in the surrounding environment. Due to this and other selective pressures in an area, researchers concluded that it is not possible to assume that the widespread use of one type of antibiotic will have the same effect on antibiotic-resistant bacteria spread in different countries.

The scientists stress that their results warrant sustained research efforts to identify what else drives the spread of E. coli and other clinically important bacteria across a range of ecological settings. Further research is needed to fully understand the combined effect of antibiotics, travel, food production systems and other factors shaping the levels of drug resistance in a country.

Understanding more about the strains that can outcompete antibiotic-resistant E. coli can lead to new ways to help stop the spread. For example, attempts that increase the amount of non-resistant, non-harmful bacteria in an area.

Dr Anna Pöntinen, co-first author from the University of Oslo, Norway and visiting scientist at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, said: “Our large-scale study allowed us to start to answer some of the long-standing questions about what causally drives multidrug-resistant bacteria in a population. This research was only possible due to the national systematic surveillance of bacterial pathogens that occurred in the UK and Norway. Without such systems in place, scientists would be considerably more limited in terms of what can be learnt using the power of genomics.” 

Professor Julian Parkhill, co-author from the University of Cambridge, said: “Our study suggests that antibiotics are modulating factors in the success of antibiotic-resistant E. coli, instead of the only cause. Our research traced the impact of several different broad-spectrum antibiotics and shows that the influence of these varies by country and area. Overall, our comprehensive genetic analysis shows that it is not always possible to predict how the use of antibiotics will impact an area without knowing the genetic makeup of the bacterial strains in that environment.” 

Professor Jukka Corander, senior author from the Wellcome Sanger Institute and the University of Oslo, Norway, said: “Treatment-resistant E. coli is a major global public health issue. While it has long been accepted that the overuse of antibiotics plays a role in the rise and spread of superbugs, our study highlights that the level of drug resistance in widespread E. coli strains can vary substantially. Antibiotic use will be one selective pressure, and our study shows that it is not the only factor that impacts the success of these bacteria. Continuing to use genomics to gain a detailed understanding of the underlying drivers of bacterial success is crucial if we are to control the spread of superbugs.”

ENDS

Contact details:
Rachael Smith

Press Office
Wellcome Sanger Institute
Cambridge, CB10 1SA

Email: press.office@sanger.ac.uk

Notes to Editors:

1. Kern WV, Rieg S. (2020) Burden of bacterial bloodstream infection – A brief update on epidemiology and significance of multidrug-resistant pathogens. Clin Microbiol Infect. DOI: 10.1016/j.cmi.2019.10.031
2. UK Health Security Agency. New data shows 148 severe antibiotic-resistant infections a day in 2021. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-data-shows-148-severe-antibiotic-resistant-infections-a-day-in-2021#:~:text=Over%20two%2Dfifths%20of%20E,as%20cefiderocol%20to%20identify%20resistance.
3. Wang. S, Zhao. S, Zhou, et al. (2023) Antibiotic resistance spectrum of E. coli strains from different samples and age-grouped patients: a 10-year retrospective study. BMJ Open. DOI: 10.1136/bmjopen-2022-067490

Publication:

Anna Pöntinen, et al. (2024) Modulation of multi-drug resistant clone success in Escherichia coli populations: a longitudinal multi-country genomic and antibiotic usage cohort study. Lancet Microbe. DOI: 10.1016/ S2666-5247(23)00292-6

Funding:

This research was funded by the Trond Mohn Foundation, Marie Skłodowska–Curie Actions, European Research Council, the Royal Society, and Wellcome. A full acknowledgement list can be found on the publication.   

Selected websites:

About the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Oslo

Founded in 1814, the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Oslo is the oldest medical faculty in Norway. The Faculty's core activities are research, education, dissemination and innovation for the best of patients and society. https://www.med.uio.no/english/

About the University of Cambridge

The University of Cambridge is one of the world’s top ten leading universities, with a rich history of radical thinking dating back to 1209. Its mission is to contribute to society through the pursuit of education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence.

The University comprises 31 autonomous Colleges and 150 departments, faculties and institutions. Its 24,450 student body includes more than 9,000 international students from 147 countries. In 2020, 70.6% of its new undergraduate students were from state schools and 21.6% from economically disadvantaged areas.

Cambridge research spans almost every discipline, from science, technology, engineering and medicine through to the arts, humanities and social sciences, with multi-disciplinary teams working to address major global challenges. Its researchers provide academic leadership, develop strategic partnerships and collaborate with colleagues worldwide.

The University sits at the heart of the ‘Cambridge cluster’, in which more than 5,300 knowledge-intensive firms employ more than 67,000 people and generate £18 billion in turnover. Cambridge has the highest number of patent applications per 100,000 residents in the UK. www.cam.ac.uk

The Wellcome Sanger Institute

The Wellcome Sanger Institute is a world leader in genomics research. We apply and explore genomic technologies at scale to advance understanding of biology and improve health.  Making discoveries not easily made elsewhere, our research delivers insights across health, disease, evolution and pathogen biology. We are open and collaborative; our data, results, tools, technologies and training are freely shared across the globe to advance science.

Funded by Wellcome, we have the freedom to think long-term and push the boundaries of genomics. We take on the challenges of applying our research to the real world, where we aim to bring benefit to people and society.

Find out more at www.sanger.ac.uk or follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and on our Blog.

About Wellcome
Wellcome supports science to solve the urgent health challenges facing everyone. We support discovery research into life, health and wellbeing, and we’re taking on three worldwide health challenges: mental health, infectious disease and climate and health. https://wellcome.org/

 

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JOURNAL

The Lancet Microbe

DOI

10.1016/S2666-5247(23)00292-6 

ARTICLE TITLE

Modulation of multi-drug resistant clone success in Escherichia coli populations: a longitudinal multi-country genomic and antibiotic usage cohort study

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

11-Jan-2024