Biomaterials for environmental control of AMR dissemination

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) threatens human, animal, agricultural, and environmental health, driven by horizontal and vertical gene transfer. Conventional wastewater treatment removes 63–94% of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) but fails to eliminate ARGs and antibiotic-resistant bacteria, while generating toxic sludge. This review evaluates advanced biomaterials, including silver and gold nanoparticles, reactive oxygen species, magnetic nanocomposites, targeted disruption of metabolic pathways, carbon-based sorbents, biopolymers, metal-organic frameworks, functionalized enzymes/peptides, and engineered biofilms, for reducing ARG and resistant-bacteria loads, inhibiting horizontal gene transfer, and reducing the selective pressure exerted by residual antibiotics. These approaches offer enhanced performance across wastewater/agriculture/air/food supply chain systems. Challenges in scalability, ecological safety, and regulation remain, requiring integration with AI monitoring, CRISPR tools, and One Health strategies. This review aims to summarize and discuss the literature on the development and use of innovative biomaterial-based intervention strategies that address the environmental aspects of AMR in order to provide a comprehensive overview of what has been learned and developed to date.