Research paper named one of the best of 2014

Pedro Alvarez

A paper by Rice environmental engineer Pedro Alvarez and his colleagues on the proliferation of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in China has been named one of the best of 2014 by the American Chemical Society journal Environmental Science and Technology Letters.

The paper, “Proliferation of Multidrug-Resistant New Delhi Metallo-β-lactamase Genes in Municipal Wastewater Treatment Plants in Northern China,” revealed that two wastewater treatment plants in China not only failed to kill the bacteria but allowed them to multiply and escape into the environment, where they can cause dangerous infections.

The paper is one of five the journal honored this week, in no particular order, as the year’s best.

“The papers … span a variety of important topics, ranging from green energy to pollutants in water and air, with important implications for scientists and engineers, as well as our understanding and relation to our environment,” wrote deputy editor Bruce Logan in the journal’s announcement.

Alvarez is the George R. Brown Professor and chair of Rice’s Civil and Environmental Engineering Department and a member of the Environmental Protection Agency’s science advisory board. The paper’s lead author, Yi Luo, is a professor of environmental sciences and engineering at Nankai University, Tianjin, China. Co-authors are Jacques Mathieu, a research scientist at Rice; graduate students Fengxia Yang and Qing Wang of Nankai University; and master’s student Daqing Mao of Tianjin University.