Anja Worrich

Anja Worrich is a Researcher at the Department of Applied Microbial Ecology, Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research - UFZ, Leipzig, Germany. She leads research on antibiotic resistance in the environment, focusing on biotransformation of antibiotics and spread of resistance genes in agricultural soils.

• Academic Affiliation: UFZ since 2020
• Leadership: Emmy Noether Junior Research Group (2024–present)
• Teaching: Environmental Microbiology (Leipzig University), Microbial Ecology (Brandenburg University of Technology)

Research Interests:

• Antibiotic resistance gene dynamics in terrestrial ecosystems
• Role of mycelium networks in microbial dispersal
• Environmental fate of pharmaceutical contaminants
• Integrative multi-omics approaches for contaminant analysis
• One Health implications of environmental antibiotic resistance
• Biotransformation mechanisms in oligotrophic environments

Scientific Contributions:

• Key work on antibiotic resistance transfer in soil-plant systems (2024)
• Advancements in microbial ecosystem modeling (2018–2020)
• Notable publications on mycosphere dynamics (2018) and plant-microbe interactions (2018)
• Recipient of the KlarText Science Communication Award (2018)