Mar 17, 2021 Researchers at Iowa State University recently received a $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture to study how manure management systems in livestock production affect the development of bacteria capable of resisting antibiotics. The effort builds on previous research the scientists have conducted to determine how livestock production interacts with other complex factors, such as environmental processes, to contribute to antibiotic resistance. Antibiotic resistance is the process by which disease-causing bacteria develop the ability to protect themselves against medications used to stop them. Antibiotic resistance poses a growing threat to human, animal and environmental health because the speed of resistance currently outstrips the speed with which new antibiotics are being developed, said Adina Howe, an assistant professor of agricultural and biosystems engineering and principal investigator on the grant. This trend could limit the availability of treatments for a range of maladies and infections, both in humans and animals.