In 2015, all the United Nations Member States adopted the 2030 agenda for sustainable development. The 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) are at the center of this. These put one’s finger on the numerous issues of our world, and has the ambitions to reduce them as much as possible. Indeed, for them, for example, ending poverty also involves improving health, education, reducing inequality, and in the meantime taking into consideration economic growth, climate change, and trying to preserve our ecosystems such as the ocean and forests. It is the thinking of all that will permit a durable evolution of society, in a sustainable way for humans, animals, and ecosystems. Creating a biological tool for the IGEM competition is a great adventure, but the importance of SDG in this project is paramount. To consider these WHO's goals is needed to have a tool and a solution that is durable in time and permits a progression of society.
The first SDG of the WHO, is ending poverty in all its forms everywhere. As astonishing as it may be, antibiotic resistance not only affects health, but also affects the economy. Indeed, with the costs linked with longer and more complex care of patients with bacteria infections, and also the impact on mortality, this objective may be questioned. According to the World Bank, the effects of this phenomenon make it one of the greatest threats to the economy. It could cause economic damage on a scale at least comparable to that caused by the 2008 financial crisis. The impact on poverty would be particularly significant: antimicrobial resistance could push 28.3 million people into extreme poverty by 2050, including 26.2 million in low-income countries.
By fighting the problem of antibiotic resistance, Super Bug Buster contributes to the SDG. Indeed, by removing the resistances, we will reduce the period of bacterial infection, and the cost linked to it. This is our participation in this first goal of the WHO.
SDG #2 (Zero Hunger) aims to end hunger, achieve food security, improve nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture. To achieve this goal, we need to change our way of consumption considerably and how we develop our agriculture and livestock. Indeed nowadays, the human activity linked to his food is one the main issues of the world, by creating inequality and dysregulation of the ecosystems in the world, having an impact not only on human health, but also on animals and plant's lives. The overuse of antibiotics in these fields is part of this system and is one of the reasons that antibiotic resistance is more and more present on earth, in a chaotic way. We need a better proportion of agricultural area under productive and sustainable agriculture.
Our tool removes antibiotic resistance presents in bacterias, that are present in all kinds of ecosystems and organisms. With SuperBugBuster, we will be able to have a solution to antibiotic resistance caused by intensive agriculture and livestock. This will permit a solution to the actual problem. Nevertheless, above all, our team participates in promoting sustainable agriculture through our education and sensibilization campaigns. Indeed, by spreading the word about this problem, across schools, social media and posters, we try to teach how to have a better use of antibiotics. This change of comportment in industries such as agriculture and livestock, may permit removing this cause of antibiotic resistance from the list we have now. Indeed, the resistance will be less and less present with a more reasonable use of antibiotics.
SDG #3 (Good Health and well-being) aims to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all, at all ages. This passes through the reduction of the number of deaths. But in 2019, we had 1.3 million deaths worldwide due to antibiotic resistance; this goes further, because the Lancet predicted that without a solution or a changement in our way of consuming antibiotics, in 2050, we would have 50 million of deaths. And that's not even considering all the deaths due to associated factors, like hospital overcrowding, the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on treating the sick... Then, antibiotic resistance must be taken seriously if we want to ensure good health for all.
Our tool can apply to this challenge perfectly. Indeed, it permits to remove these bacteria resistance to then be able to treat the patient. With it, we will be able to treat people in an effective way that for now we can’t treat. Indeed, the ones with antibiograms full of resistance for now don’t have a solution to save their life from the infection. Super Bug Buster is a solution to that. Moreover, our sensibilization campaign will permit a better use of antibiotics, in a non automatic way. This will permit to reduce antibiotic resistance, and have fewer people dying of this significant health problem.
SDG #5 has for goal to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. One of the targets of this one is to ensure women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic and public life. This passes through the access of knowledge especially in science, a world where most of the recognized work was made by man. It also goes with the promotion of women in science, permitting people to see that women have their part and their role to play in this field. Furthermore, especially in the context of antibiotic resistance, all genders are touched by it, in equal ways. So it is essential that women, as men, are part of this fight.
So our role in this SDG has been, to first of all, include women in our project. Indeed the Super Bug Buster team includes more than half of women. Moreover, we built a communication campaign through our social media platform called Woman in Science, where we promoted the role of women in the advances of sciences that are not sufficiently recognized in this field. So we decided to present women like Rosalind Franklin, Emanuelle Charpentier or Ada Lovelace to our community. Especially for antibiotic resistance, a global subject, and touches everyone, everywhere. We think that in order to solve this issue and make decisions, women have also their place and their right to be present.
SDG #6 has the ambition to ensure the avaibility and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all. One of the goals of this is to improve water quality by reducing pollution, eliminating dumping and minimizing the release of hazardous chemicals and materials, halving the proportion of untreated wastewater and substantially increasing recycling and safe reuse globally. To do so, we have to talk about the water discharges that the different industries, hospitals and laboratories produce. For bacteria, it is a source of resistance to antibiotics. Indeed, by letting several traces of antibiotics in the waste of water, without treating it rightly, this creates resistance in the bacteria communities in the water. This water, even if it passes through a purification station, still has those resistances and impact our health and the ecosystems in nature.
To participate, at our scale for this, we promote the good use of antibiotic, and how they can impact the living if they are not used rightly. Indeed, our Human Practices of working on One Health permits us to see that all the three parts of life on earth: Human, Animals and Environment are linked and if there is a disequilibrium in one, it impacts all the other. Water is part of the environment, so treating it the right way, permits less impact on the two other parts. Antibiotic resistance and the treatment of it in the water is a major part of treating the problem. To do so, for example, we made a collaboration with the Igem Team of Goethe 2023. This team, works on a diagnostic tool, to detect resistant bacteria in water. That would allow to treat water the right way, with for example our tool: SuperBugBuster.
SDG 12 has the goal to ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns.
Indeed, the consumption of our society is at the core of many problems and plagues that appeared these past few years, and will appear in the near future. It is this consumption, this overconsumption that causes the rise of antibiotic resistance. A better use of antibiotics will save humanity, the animals and the environment. Modern society needs for that, a real change.
Our tool is a solution for antibiotic resistance, but not a durable one. Indeed, Super Bug Buster will remove the resistance, but as we know nature adapts herself constantly. That is why, this can’t be a solution by itself, we need to bring another tool, another solution to it. We think that the answer lies in education and sensibilization of people, to change their consumption habits. To do so, the team imagined a sensibilization campaign to educate children, patients and students. The awareness that we made with our social media, also educates, to touch even more than with just a poster or games.
Our project aims at contributing to 6 Sustainable Development Goals:
Our exchanges with stakeholders of different fields demonstrated that SuperBugBuster can be a solution and a contribution to these goals.
Murray CJL, Ikuta KS, Sharara F, Swetschinski L, Aguilar GR, Gray A, et al. Global burden of bacterial antimicrobial resistance in 2019: a systematic analysis. The Lancet. 2022 Feb 12;399(10325):629–55.
https://sdgs.un.org/goals