How Bacteria Outsmart Antibiotics: A Conversation with Dr. Adina Howe Artwork

Tales of the Resistance

Antimicrobial-resistant (AMR) infections have been recognized globally as a significant threat to public health. In this podcast series, we're going to be talking to folks who are working to address the AMR crisis, we'll hear how they got started working with AMR and why they care about it so much...all that and more in Tales of the Resistance.Ready to learn more about AMR? Check in with the iAMResponsible team: https://iamrproject.unl.edu/

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Tales of the Resistance

How Bacteria Outsmart Antibiotics: A Conversation with Dr. Adina Howe

July 23, 2026 • iAMResponsible

0:00 | 26:37

Bacteria are constantly adapting. They exchange genes, respond to their environment, and evolve in ways that can make antibiotics less effective over time. But understanding antimicrobial resistance requires much more than studying bacteria alone.

In this episode, microbiologist Dr. Adina Howe explains how environmental microbiology helps scientists understand where antibiotic resistance develops, how it spreads, and why agricultural environments are an important part of the story. Drawing from her work on the multidisciplinary CAMRADES project, she discusses why manure can become a hotspot for antimicrobial resistance, how bacteria share resistance genes, and why researchers combine microbiology, genetics, chemistry, hydrology, and predictive modeling to understand these complex environmental systems.

Whether you're curious about microbiology, environmental science, or the future of antibiotics, this conversation offers an accessible look inside the invisible microbial world that surrounds us every day.

This show is produced by the iAMResponsible project, a nationwide university outreach team led by Amy Schmidt at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Find out more about the project here. Funding for the iAMResponsbile Project was provided by USDA-NIFA Award Nos. 2017-68003-26497, 2018-68003-27467 and 2018-68003-27545. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.