The Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry has awarded PhD Katariina Pärnänen a dissertation prize of one thousand euros for her dissertation completed in 2021. The dissertation Interconnected resistomes and the accumulative antibiotic resistance crisis focused on the study of selection pressures that shape bacterial communities and the effects of the spread of resistant bacteria, utilizing methods based mainly on metagenomics. For example, the study found that the use of infant formula had a strong association with the intestinal resistance load in babies. The use of the infant formula had a more significant association with the intestinal resistance load than the antibiotic regimens given to the babies in the study. The results of the environmental study that was part of the dissertation suggested that faecal pollution is almost always behind the resistance load observed in the environment, even in Europe despite wastewater treatment.
After her dissertation, Katariina Pärnänen has worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Turku. She will start a research project on the effects of antimicrobial resistance on the adult population this autumn with funding from the Academy of Finland.
"In my current project, funded by the Academy of Finland, I am trying to find out what kind of long-term, still unknown, health risks can be caused by the asymptomatic carrying of resistant intestinal bacteria. In addition, I am interested in which background factors affect the resistance load of adults in the Finnish population. Study is carried out together with our main collaborator, Finnish Institute of Health and Welfare.” Pärnänen says.
Dissertation award of the Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry
The Faculty of Agricultural Forestry Deans annually select the recipient of the dissertation award. The prize-winner will be selected from dissertations with the grade approved with distinction. In 2022, the recipient of the faculty dissertation award was selected from the dissertations with the grade approved with distinction in 2021.
Doctoral dissertation
Katariina Pärnänen. Interconnected resistomes and the accumulative antibiotic resistance crisis
Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry 2021.