CFS student finalist in UGA 3MT® Competition

By Jennifer Reynolds

Communication Professional for the Center for Food Safety

University of Georgia Center for Food Safety Ph.D. student Jouman Hassan was a finalist in this year’s 13th annual 3MT® competition. 

Under the supervision of Issmat I. Kassem, Hassan has been working as part of a multinational team researching the spread of antimicrobial resistance via the environment and food supply. Antimicrobial resistance has been recognized as one of the top 10 public health challenges facing humanity. Hassan’s Ph.D. project has focused on resistance to colistin and the associated mobile colistin resistance (mcr) genes. Colistin is considered a “last resort” drug in human medicine because it is used to treat certain complicated bacterial infections that are resistant to all other antibiotics.  

“The World Health Organization lists Colistin as one of the highest priority, critically important antibiotics for human use,” said Hassan. “In other terms, when other antibiotics fail, colistin is used to treat certain recalcitrant infections in humans, mainly the ones caused by multidrug and extensively drug-resistant, Gram-negative bacteria. Therefore, resistance to colistin is a major problem that requires peremptory attention by stakeholders.”

In 2023, the Georgia Association for Food Protection named Hassan the first-place Jim Ayres Young Investigator Award winner. In 2024, she was named the first-place winner of the CFS Student Poster Contest held during its annual meeting. 

See final contest results here.