Dear All,
The June issue of ACS Infectious Diseases (link) is entirely devoted to the perspectives on how we can restore and maintain the antibiotic ecosystem. Check it out … we have perspectives from major groups driving policy, groups doing active R&D, and the major funders. Here’s the table of contents, re-organized slightly to group the papers by topic. All articles appear to be open access:
- Overviews & Policy work
- Blaskovich: Antibiotics Special Issue: Challenges and Opportunities in Antibiotic Discovery and Development
- Beyer and Paulin (WHO): The Antibacterial Research and Development Pipeline Needs Urgent Solutions
- Kim, Prosen, Lepore, and Coukell (Pew Trusts): On the Road to Discovering Urgently Needed Antibiotics: So Close Yet So Far Away
- Wiecek and Buckland-Merritt (Wellcome Trust): A View from the Wellcome Trust Drug-Resistant Infections Priority Programme: Creating a Sustainable Research and Development Ecosystem to Meet the Global Need for Antibiotics
- Shlaes: Antibacterial Drugs: The Last Frontier and Personal View of the Antibiotic Value Proposition
- Action
- Balasegaram and Piddock (GARDP): The Global Antibiotic Research and Development Partnership (GARDP) Not-for-Profit Model of Antibiotic Development
- Zuegg, Hansford, Elliott, Cooper, and Blaskovich (CO-ADD): How to Stimulate and Facilitate Early Stage Antibiotic Discovery
- Nambiar (FDA), Cavaleri (EMA), Sato (PMDA): Achieving Regulatory Alignment for Anti-Infective Clinical Trials
- R&D Support
- Zeituni and Raterman (NIAID): NIAID’s Comprehensive Support Mechanisms for Antibiotic Development
- Engel (Novo REPAIR Impact Fund): Fostering Antibiotic Development through Impact Funding
- Alm & Gallant: Innovation in Antimicrobial Resistance: The CARB-X Perspective
Just reading the titles gives you a great overview of the many, many activities in this area … my thanks to the authors for taking the time to write these papers.
All best wishes, –jr
PS: Be sure to look at the meetings calendar: There are new webinars…
John H. Rex, MD | Chief Medical Officer, F2G Ltd. | Operating Partner, Advent Life Sciences. Follow me on Twitter: @JohnRex_NewAbx. See past newsletters and subscribe for the future: https://amr.solutions/blog/. All opinions are my own.
Current funding opportunities:
- Novo REPAIR Impact Fund is open for global applications through 21 Jul 2020. Go here for current details.
- 2020 funding rounds for CARB-X have not been announced.
- The Global AMR R&D Hub’s dynamic dashboard (link) summarizes funders and projects by geography, stage, and more.
Upcoming meetings of interest to the AMR community:
- 16 Jun 2020 (online, 17:00-18:30 CEST): GARDP REVIVE webinar. Title: “Bringing new treatments for drug-resistant infections to all who need them.” Speakers: Seamus O’Brien, Francois Francheschi, Sally Ellis. Go here register.
- [NEW] 25 June 2020 (online, 13:00-14:00 CEST): JPIAMR webinar. Title: “Antibiotic Use: Have antibiotics been appropriately used in the COVID-19 pandemic?” Speaker: Jesús Rodriguez Baño will moderate a global panel discussion. Go here to register.
- 25 Jun 2020 (online, 14:00-15:00 CEST): GARDP REVIVE webinar. Title: “Putting children first in the fight against antibiotic resistance.” Speakers: Manica Balasegaram, Hanan Balkhy, Stafan Peterson. Go here register.
- [NEW] 25 June 2020 (online, 14:30-15:30 CEST): JPIAMR webinar. Title: “AMR Research: Facilitating AMR research in the COVID-19 pandemic” Speaker: Till Bachmann will moderate a global panel discussion. Go here to register.
- 30 Jun 2020 (online, 17:00-18:30 CEST): GARDP REVIVE webinar. Title: “Clinical development of antimicrobials – Phase 1 development challenges.” Speaker: Markus Zeitlinger. Go here to register.
- 9 Jul 2020 (online, 09:00-10:30 CEST): GARDP REVIVE webinar. Title: “The challenges and opportunities for antimicrobial R&D in low- and middle-income countries – India case study.” Speaker: Anand Anandkumar and Kamini Walla. Go here to register.
- 17 Jul-2 Aug 2020 (Marine Biology Laboratory, Woods Hole, MA): Residential course entitled “Molecular Mycology: Current Approaches to Fungal Pathogenesis.” This 2-week intensive training program has run annually for many years and gets outstanding reviews. Go here for details.
- [UPDATED] 27 Jul-31 Jul 2020 (online): Small World Initiative Instructor Training Workshop – training for undergraduate professors and high school teachers in wet lab techniques, parallel curricula, & pedagogical instruction to engage students in the hunt to find new antibiotics in soil (also covering distancing learning options). Go here to register.
- 4 Aug 2020 (Silver Spring): FDA workshop entitled “Development Considerations of Antifungal Drugs to Address Unmet Medical Need.” Go here to register.
- 5 Aug 2020 (Silver Spring): FDA workshop entitled “Developing Antifungal Drugs for the Treatment of Coccidioidomycosis (Valley Fever) Infection.” Go here to register.
- September 2020. University of Sheffield (UK). Applications are being taken for a new 1-year (full-time) or 2-year (part-time) Masters of Science course in Antimicrobial Resistance. The program runs annually from September and covers microbiology, clinical practice and policy. The course webpage is here.
- 9-10 Sep 2020 (Washington, DC): US PACCARB public meeting. Go here for details.
- 26-29 Oct 2020 (Rotterdam), Annual ESPID meeting (European Society for Pediatric ID, #38)
- 10-13 Apr 2021 (Vienna): Annual ECCMID meeting (#31)
- 20-24 June 2021 (Toronto): International Symposium on Pneumococci and Pneumococcal Diseases (ISPPD-12). Go here for details.
- 3-7 Jun 2021 (Anaheim), ASM Microbe 2021. Go here for details.
- 8-11 Oct 2021 (Aberdeen, Scotland): 10th Trends in Medical Mycology. Go here for details.
- 16-24 Oct 2021 (Annecy, France): Interdisciplinary Course on Antibiotics and Resistance (ICARe). This is a soup-to-nuts residential course on antibiotics, antibiotic resistance, and antibiotic R&D. The course is very intense, very detailed, and gets rave reviews. Registration is here and is limited to 40 students.
- 18-21 May 2021 (Albuquerque, New Mexico): Biannual meeting of the MSGERC (Mycoses Study Group Education and Research Consortium). Save-the-date announcement is here, details to follow.