ANTIMICROBIAL RESISTANCE SOLUTIONS
WITH DR. JOHN H. REX
Latest Newsletters
Dear All,I was delighted to learn today that NIAID has released RFA-AI-24-069, a notice of funding opportunity (NOFO) soliciting applications to establish Centers for Accelerating Phage Therapy to Combat ESKAPE Pathogens (CAPT-CEP). The CAPT-CEPs will focus on developing preclinical assays, tools, and models for robust phage therapy R&D and advancing phage clinical research. Applications are due by 28 Jan 2025; letters of intent must be received 30 days prior to the due date. This RFA expects CAPT-CEPs to "develop novel, high-throughput, and cutting-edge assays, tools, and models for phage therapy that can be applied to other phage R&D studies; and to perform essential studies to understand PK/PD and to evaluate optimal delivery systems and dosages of phages, which can be used in designing future clinical trials to combat ESKAPE pathogens." If ESKAPE pathogens are not familiar, you can see my summary of priority pathogen lists -- created in 2008 by Lou Rice's "No ESKAPE" paper, ESKAPE is the grandfather/grandmother of all the priority pathogen lists.Quoting further from the RFA, we can see the goal is the creation of enabling tools:"Applications must focus on the preclinical development of phage therapies that target at least one of the ESKAPE pathogens listed above."Projects should focus on developing necessary assays,...
Latest Government Action
This is the fifth of a 5-part newsletter series. There is an initial 27 Sep 2023 newsletter introducing the EPA concept note, a second (28 Sep 2023) newsletter that expands on the EPA concept note, a third (12 Jan 2024) newsletter about ending the use of streptomycin spray on citrus crops, and a 4th newsletter (27 Jan 2024) containing some additional resources. Dear All, Excitingly, the US EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) has now finalized a framework for reviewing the AMR (resistance) risks of antibacterial and antifungal pesticides. Here's a summary to get you started: When used in crop or animal agriculture, antibacterials and antifungals fall under the regulation for pesticides provided by FIFRA (the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act). Yes, I know that idea sounds odd ... pesticides? Well, it's a regulatory term. See the 27 Sep 2023 AMR.Solutions newsletter if you want to go deeper on this. FIFRA requires that use of the pesticide according to label specifications will not generally cause "unreasonable adverse effects on the environment" which are in turn defined to mean “(1) any unreasonable risk to man or the environment, taking into account the economic, social, and environmental costs and benefits of the use of any pesticide, or "(2) a human dietary risk from residues that result from a use of...
Dear All, Greetings from Porto...
Dear All,During the GLG AMR...
Dear All,Well, ECCMID 2024 (Barcelona)...
Dear All (moderately wonkish, so...
R&D Insight
Dear All: New things continue...
Dear All,WHO have been thinking...
Dear All: It is exciting...
Dear All: Two things today....
Dear All,Kevin Outterson and I...
Dear All: Cassini et al....
Addendum: This is the second...
Dear All:Among various paradoxes that...
Dear All:On Wednesday 6 Sep...
Can you help?
Dear All,I have just learned that Lifeline, the musical formerly known as The Mould that Changed the World, is seeking scientists, medics, and healthcare professionals to be part of the cast for a portion of a planned 5-week off-Broadway run of the show around the time of the High-Level Meeting (HLM) on AMR at UNGA 2024 in New York City...
Dear All, Heads up! Having...
Note: Be sure to take...
Update on 11 October 2023: The...
Dear All,Along with more than...
Dear All (and with thanks to...
Dear All, Two items for...
Dear All, Three things today......
Dear All, Greetings from ECCMID...
Dear All,A key theme of...
Dear All,Following hard on the...
Dear All, A short one...
Dear All, We are swimming...
Antimicrobial resistance poses a catastrophic threat. If we don’t act now, any one of us could go into hospital in 20 years for minor surgery and die because of an ordinary infection that can’t be treated by antibiotics. And routine operations like hip replacements or organ transplants could be deadly because of the risk of infection.
AMR Fireside Chats
1/17 videos
1
Episode 16 w/ Ramanan Laxminarayan, PhD - AMR Fireside Chat
32:59
2
Episode 15 w/ Mark Albrecht, PhD - AMR Fireside Chat
43:55
3
Episode 14 w/ Lynn Silver - AMR Fireside Chat
56:23
4
Episode 13 w/ Kevin Outterson - AMR Fireside Chat
30:01
5
Episode 12 w/ Tina Joshi, PhD - AMR Fireside Chat
34:22
6
Episode 11 w/ Martin Heidecker - AMR Fireside Chat
32:31
7
Episode 10 w/ Anna Govett - AMR Fireside Chat
14:54
8
Episode 9 w/ Fatema Rafiqi, PhD - AMR Fireside Chat
34:10
9
Episode 8 w/ Ghada Zoubiane, PhD - AMR Fireside Chat
35:04
10
Episode 7 w/ Trevor Lithgow, PhD - AMR Fireside Chat
35:41
11
AMR Snapshots: Episode 2 - John Rex (Editor-In-Chief, AMR.Solutions)
26:25
12
Episode 6 w/ Maryn McKenna - AMR Fireside Chat
45:50
13
Episode 5 w/ Christine Årdal - AMR Fireside Chat
43:44
14
Episode 4 w/ Peter Beyer - AMR Fireside Chat
39:21
15
Episode 3 w/ Kevin Outterson - AMR Fireside Chat
11:45
16
Episode 2 w/ Henry Skinner, PhD - AMR Fireside Chat
15:44
17
Episode 1 w/ Kevin Outterson - AMR Fireside Chat
52:56
Novel Biology, Novel Utility, & the Illusion of Skill: What to develop? What to reward?
Dear All (wonk-ish note alert and also with particular thanks as always to Kevin Outterson for helping to refine this newsletter): Sparked at least in
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New pipeline analysis: Cancer projects were funded 17x more than antibacterials during 2011-2020
Dear All (wonkish alert: coffee up, settle in, and read the reports!), As you will recall, WHO’s most current pipeline review found that globally we
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In Praise of Non-Inferiority
Dear All (wonkish but intended for everybody to read and absorb): 27 Jan 2021 update: This topic now has its own YouTube video! As the
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Developing antibiotics for children: There are no easy answers
Aside: If you’ve enjoyed the prior discussions of movies to inspire antibiotic R&D and very apropos given the theme of today’s newsletter, please check out the
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Lancet: 10-20-30 targets to address AMR by 2030
Dear All (wonkish alert … but definitely worth the effort! Refill your coffee!),Ramanan Laxminarayan and about 40 colleagues from around the world have just published in
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Push! Pull! Push! Pull! / Highlights from Davos 2018
Dear All: Three important documents were released at / during / around the World Economic Forum meeting that occurred this week in Davos. First and foremost,
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FDA workshop: Insights on inhaled antifungals and antibacterials
Dear All (wonkish alert … coffee up!), FDA held a workshop on 25 Sep 2020 on development of inhaled antifungal (AF) therapies with a focus
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FDA and EMA regulatory updates / Fireside chat during the 4th AMR Conference
Dear All (lots and lots of wonkish detail here, be sure your blood caffeine level is adequate!), During the 24-28 Aug 2020 BEAM Alliance-sponsored AMR Conference
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Modeling the value of an effective antibiotic — Megiddo et al.
Dear All: I have previously written about the challenge of applying health technology assessment (HTA) to estimate the monetary value of an effective antibiotic: To my knowledge,
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FDA analysis of 40-years of antibacterial development: Dheman et al.
Dear All (and with thanks to Kevin Outterson for co-authoring this newsletter), Just out in CID is a paper in which FDA analyzes trends in
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UK to expand NHS Subscription Pilot! Consultation Period launches
Dear All (and with thanks to Kevin for co-authoring), The UK NHS England Pilot is known to us all as the first real attempt at an antibiotic
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Non-traditional antibiotics: A pipeline review and an analysis of key development challenges
Dear All, Non-traditional alternatives to antibiotics have excited a lot of interest in the past few years but we’ve seen relatively few of these progress
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The thoughtless person playing with penicillin treatment is morally responsible for the death of the man who succumbs to infection with the penicillin-resistant organism.
The bipartisan PASTEUR Act is the strongest bill ever written to strengthen antibiotic development and use. It will fix our market failures, expand the pipeline for next generation antibiotics, and save lives. We can’t sit on our hands as this public health crisis arrives – we have to act now.
Summaries
Notes: Newsflash ... BARDA have...
Aside: If you've enjoyed the...
Dear All,See also this related...
Dear All (and with thanks...
Dear All (Wonkish alert! Coffee-up!),Today...