Citizen Science to Raise Antimicrobial Resistance Awareness in the Community: The <scp>MicroMundo</scp> Project in Spain and Portugal
Jéssica Gil-Serna, Patrı́cia Antunes, Susana Campoy, Ángeles Cid, Antonio Cobo‐Molinos, Paulo Durão, Carmen Fajardo, Belén Fouz, Ana R. Freitas, Filipa Grosso, Piet W. J. de Groot, Trinidad de Miguel, Bruno González Zörn, Belén Hinojosa, Maria João Leão, Montserrat Llagostera, Rosa de Llanos, Ainhoa Lucía, Sergi Maicas, Irma Marı́n, Magdalena Martínez‐Cañamero, Carla Miranda, José Manuel Molina‐Guijarro, Diego A. Moreno, María de los Llanos Palop, María José Pérez, Pedro M. Pereira, María Teresa Pérez‐Gracia, Sandra Quinteira, Carmen Rioboo, Beatriz Robredo, José M. Rodríguez-Calleja, Rafael R. de la Haba, Sandra Sánchez, Manuel Sánchez, Cristina Sánchez‐Porro, Félix J. Sangari, Beatriz Santos, Eduarda Silveira, Begonya Vicedo, Vı́ctor J. Cid, all members of MicroMundo Teams in Spain and Portugal
Abstract
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) poses a global threat to human, animal and environmental health. Among the multidisciplinary tasks aimed at collectively tackling the AMR crisis, surveillance, research and education stand as major priorities. Based on a crowdsourcing research strategy, the MicroMundo project, a partner of the Tiny Earth initiative in Spain and Portugal, has been developed and consolidated with success in the academic environment. The objectives are focused on promoting research and, especially, on bringing knowledge of One Health and microbiology concepts, as well as AMR awareness to the community. Following a service-learning approach, MicroMundo integrates university and secondary/high school students in a citizen science-based research project to collectively isolate microorganisms with the potential to produce new antibiotics from soil environments. Over the last 7 years, 32 MicroMundo hubs operating across 31 different Portuguese and Spanish universities have recruited thousands of teenagers in this quest. Here we review the outcome of this unprecedented effort from a scientific and an educational perspective.