Professor Frank Møller Aarestrup from the National Food Institute, Technical University of Denmark, has been awarded the Nils Foss Excellence Prize 2017 worth EUR 100,000 (US$118,429.57).
At least 75% must be used for further research.
It is the second consecutive year that the prize has been awarded to a researcher, who has made a difference to food safety and quality.
The winning research was within antimicrobial resistance—research that has had a direct impact on global food safety and health.
One of the most important contributions has been to map and prove that the use of antimicrobials in animals has financial and health consequences.
People can also reduce consumption of antimicrobials without it having an impact on food production. Currently, professor Aarestrup is building a global frame for surveillance of infectious diseases.
The Research Group for Genomic Epidemiology, which the professor is the head of, is currently working on collecting sewage water samples that make it possible to examine complex samples from large populations and not only from individuals.
If many samples are collected from all of the world’s great cities, it would be possible to monitor infectious diseases in up to half of the global population.
Story by Heidi Kornholt, Technical University of Denmark
