Two engineers with the University of Houston have embarked on a project to determine whether the use of tiny amounts of antibiotics embedded in corn-based nanoparticles could allow the use of lower dosages and avoid wiping out the microbiome - the collection of both healthy and disease-causing bacteria found in the intestines - and the resulting genetic mutations that lead to antibiotic resistance.
Debora Rodrigues, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, and Stacey Louie, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, have developed a reactor to simulate pig intestines in order to study how antibiotics react in the pig microbiome.