Carles M Borrego

I’m a microbial ecologist with a wide expertise on the study of microbial communities in inland waters. Briefly, I received my PhD in Microbiology from the University of Girona (UdG) in 1996. On year later, my PhD Thesis received the UdG Extraordinary Doctorate Award in Biology. From 1996 to 2001 I held a position of Assistant Professor of Microbiology in the UdG. In March 2001 I got the position of Associate Professor of Microbiology at the UdG that I have been occupying since then. From 1993 to 2003 I participated as a researcher in 6 projects of the National Research Plan from the Spanish government and in a European TMR Network together with a consortium composed of research groups from Germany, Sweden, Denmark and The Netherlands. In 2003, I led my first research project of the National Research and Innovation Plan (2003-2006) focused on the ecology of non-cultivated Archaea in freshwater lakes (VIARC, REN2003-08333-C02-01/GLO). This line of research continued steadily until 2016 thanks to three consecutive projects funded by the Spanish government (CRENYC (CGL2006-12058-C02-01/BOS), ARCANOX (CGL2009-13318-C02-02/BOS) and ARCOS (CGL2012-33033)).

In December 2011, I joined the Catalan Water Research Institute (ICRA) as Research Professor to lead the group of “Water Microbiology”. Since then, my main interest has been the study of antibiotic resistance in aquatic environments undergoing anthropogenic pollution. In 2013, I was PI in a European Water JPI project funded by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (Retos de la Sociedad 2013-2016) focused on the development of a DNA chip for the detection of antibiotic resistance genes in surface waters (TRACE, JPIW2013-129). As a researcher, I also participated in another project of the same call focused on the study of antibiotic resistance genes in groundwater (PERSIST, JPIW2013-118) and in GLOBAQUA (ENV-2013-603629), a project funded by the Seventh Framework Program of the European Union. In December 2016, I led a project funded by the Spanish government (National R+D+i Plan, 2016 call) aimed to determine the factors that favor the accumulation, dissemination, and removal of antibiotic resistance in sewers (SEWAGENE, CTM2016-75653-R). Currently, I’m leading a project focused on the role of migratory waterbirds as vehicles for the dissemination of antibiotic resistance (DARABi, PID2019-108962GB-C22) and I’m participating in three projects related to wastewater-based epidemiology, namely: i) SCOREwater (SEP-210520689), which is a project recently funded by the EU Horizon2020 program focused on the intelligent water management in urban centers through the monitoring, control, and analysis of biomarkers in wastewater; ii) VirWASTE (2020PANDE00044, AGAUR, Generalitat de Catalunya), which deals on the use of wastewater as data source on SARS-CoV-2 and other potentially pandemic viruses; and iii) EpiSARS (544/C/2021, Fundació La Marató TV3), which aims to track the dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 through wastewater.

I authored 104 publications in SCI journals, 7 book chapters, and more than 100 communications in national and international conferences. Currently, my h-index is 37. Since joining ICRA at the end of 2011, I have published 66 research articles, which gives an average of 6 publications per year. In the same period (2011–2023) my publications have received an average of 310 citations per year. The National Committee for the Assessment of the Research Action (CNEAI) have positively evaluated five six-year periods of research activity (1993–1998, 1999–2004, 2005–2010, 2011-2016, and 2017–2022). As a result of my professional background on antibiotic resistance, I was invited by the Spanish Drug Agency (Agencia Española del Medicamento y Productos Sanitarios) to join the commission in charge of the preparation of the National Action Plan on Antimicrobial Resistance (PRAN 2019-2021 and PRAN 2022-2024). I’m member of the ICRA team that coordinates the Catalan Surveillance Network of SARS-CoV-2 in sewage (https://sarsaigua.icra.cat).