Question: Antimicrobial resistance is one of the greatest challenges facing humanity today. Describe how resistance to an antimicrobial agent initially arises, and then persists in a population. Next, consider how environments harbouring a large number of different microbes, like wastewater treatment plants, or the gut microbiome, can be considered hot spots for the spread of antimicrobial resistance. How can antimicrobial resistance be spread to different organisms? Describe the mechanisms involved in the dissemination of antimicrobial resistance in detail.