MSI PI Bill Arnold (Civil, Environmental, and Geo- Engineering) was interviewed on Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) recently about a study that discovered that antibiotics can be found in the sediment in Minnesota lakes. Researchers tested sediment in Lake Pepin, Lake Winona, and Duluth harbor, and found that the sediment contained several different antibiotics. All of the test sites receive water from wastewater treatment plants. These results have implications for researchers fighting antibiotic resistance in microbes.
The complete interview can be found on the MPR website: Antibiotics are accumulating in Minn. lakes, posing health risk.
Professor Arnold uses MSI for computational chemistry work supporting research into how water contaminants persist in water and how to design systems to combat them.