NOAA LMRCSC-II Fellow and University of Maryland Eastern Shore student Tahirah Johnson successfully defended her Ph.D. thesis, “Prevalence, antibiotic resistance, whole genome sequencing and control of Shewanella sp. in oysters (Crassostrea virginica) and seawater collected from the Mid-Atlantic region” on Oct. 29.
Her research focuses on incidence and pathogenic potential of the bacterium Shewanella, which is found in seafood and seawater, and can be passed on to humans. Shewanella is an emerging pathogen that isn’t officially tracked by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In a recently published research paper in the Journal of Food Protection, titled, “Antibiotic Resistance Profiling of Hemolytic Shewanella Species in Oysters and Seawater from the Mid-Atlantic Region,” Tahirah and her co-authors examine the antibiotic resistance of the bacteria.
Notably, the research showed 16.27% of oyster isolates and 18.94% of seawater isolates were resistant to one or more antibiotics.
The article stressed the need for continued surveillance of antimicrobial resistance in marine ecosystems and the development of mitigation strategies to address antibiotic-resistant Shewanella species.
