1 Project Summary: Resistant bacterial infections impact animal health and welfare, but they also 2 have potential for causing negative human health consequences through transmission of resistant 3 bacteria or resistance genes through food or animal contact. The use of common classes of 4 antimicrobials in humans and animals increases the likelihood that drug resistance selected for in 5 animal species could impact humans and vice versa. Therefore, monitoring AMR in animals has 6 the potential to contribute to mitigation not only disease in animals but human infections as well. 7 Coordinated nationwide AMR monitoring in veterinary species for bacteria of importance in 8 major sectors of veterinary medicine is has been a recent phenomenon, and many data gaps exist. 9 Veterinary diagnostic laboratories are uniquely positioned to contribute to antimicrobial 10 resistance (AMR) monitoring through access to clinically relevant bacterial isolates and technical 11 expertise in laboratory testing. This project addresses these gaps by contributing to standardized 12 method development for whole genome sequencing to ensure the sensitivity and specificity is 13 appropriate for detecting the resistance of interest, improvement of the bioinformatics pipeline 14 with quality assurance and quality control criteria tailored to the veterinary diagnostic laboratory 15 and provide AMR data in agricultural and companion animal species. Each year of funding will 16 involve coordination with veterinary diagnostic source laboratories for acquisition of bacterial 17 isolates derived from clinically affected animals, including Salmonella, E. coli and 18 Staphylococcus pseudintermedius and other bacteria of interest, from across the US, performance 19 of whole genome sequencing of on a quarterly basis, and evaluation for the presence of 20 antimicrobial resistance genes. The data will be provided to FDA CVM Vet-LIRN for further 21 evaluation and future public availability. 22 23