AMR.Solutions

Major job opportunity: Director, BARDA Division of Research, Innovation, and Ventures (DRIVe). Deadline 7 Dec 2019

Dear All: BARDA’s Division for Research, Innovation and Ventures (DRIVe) was established earlier this year with a mission to develop countermeasures to protect Americans from natural and intentional health security threats.

BARDA now seeks a permanent director for the Division. The job description for this role is that the Director will:

Use vision and strategic and scientific leadership to create programs that transform medical countermeasures and how they are made and used.
Pursue imaginative and innovative research and development projects with the potential to have a significant positive impact on national health care challenges and meet live-saving national security needs.
Identify promising MCMs and technology investment priorities and advance research and development strategies through public and private partnerships and collaborations with governmental and non-governmental organizations and other funding partners.
Communicate programmatic priorities, funding opportunities and models, and business practices to diverse audiences that include industry, governmental and non-governmental organizations, funding partners, and the general public.
Identify new business practices and funding mechanisms to increase efficiency and effectiveness in meeting programmatic objectives.
Organize, direct, and manage all human, financial, and informational resources to implement a comprehensive strategy that delivers effective high quality programs.

Could this be you? The deadline for applications (https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/515065900) is 7 Dec 2019.

All best wishes, –jr

John H. Rex, MD | Chief Medical Officer, F2G Ltd. | Expert-in-Residence, Wellcome Trust. Follow me on Twitter: @JohnRex_NewAbx. See past newsletters and subscribe for the future: http://amr.solutions/blog/

Upcoming meetings of interest to the AMR community:

29-30 Nov 2018 (Birmingham, UK): BSAC (British Society Antimicrobial Chemotherapy): Antibiotic Resistance Mechanisms Workshop for Researchers
7 Dec 2018 (Boston, MA): BAARN, Boston Area Antimicrobial Resistance Network 2018 symposium, 8:30am to 7pm at The Starr Center (185 Cambridge Street, Boston, MA). This is an excellent networking opportunity, especially for those based in the Boston area. Register here.
[NEW] 17 Dec 2018 (online): Webinar on TDM of antibiotics, sponsored by the journal Clinical Mass Spectroscopy.
[NEW] 13 Dec 2018 (online): CDD webinar entitled “New Strategies in Antibiotic Drug Development.” Register here.
15 Jan 2018 (London): BSAC’s Antimicrobial Chemotherapy Conference 2019: “An ABC for everyone involved in developing new antimicrobials.” Details here.
[NEW] 4-5 Feb 2019 (London): Hamied Foundation UK-India Antimicrobial Resistance Meeting 2019. This is a 2-day meeting focused on building research links between the UK and India with the specific aim of jointly addressing the challenge of AMR. Register here.
14-15 Mar 2019 (Berlin): BEAM-, CARB-X-, and ND4BB-ENABLE-sponsored Berlin Conference on Novel Antimicrobials and AMR Diagnostics. Details here.
21-22 Mar 2019 (Birmingham, UK): BSAC Spring Conference.
[NEW] 26 Mar 2019 (London, UK): Sponsored by The Economist, a 1-day symposium entitled “Antimicrobial Resistance: Preventing an antibiotic apocalypse.” Register here.
[NEW] 13-16 Apr 2019 (Amsterdam): Annual ECCMID meeting.
[NEW] 24-26 Apr 2019 (Boston). Annual SHEA (Soc. for Hospital Epidemiology of America) Spring meeting
[NEW] 3-6 Jun 2019 (Philadelphia): Annual BIO meeting
[NEW] 20-24 June 2019 (San Francisco): Annual ASM Microbe meeting.
[NEW — mark your calendar now!] 3-6 Sep 2019 (Boston). Annual ASM-ESCMID Conference on Antibiotic Development. The Bootcamp series will continue on 3 Sep with the main meeting on 4-6 Sep. Mark your calendar now and check back here for details.
[NEW] 6-8 Sep 2019 (Bilbao, Spain): 5th ESCMID conference on Vaccines. Check back here for details.
[NEW] 2-6 Oct 2018 (Washington, DC): IDSA’s annual IDWeek meeting.
19-27 Oct 2019 (Annecy, France): International Course on Antibiotics and Resistance (ICARe) – A soup-to-nuts intensive residential training program on all things AMR, especially R&D for new antibiotics. See this link for details.

Dear All,

The IDWeek 2024 program committee is again seeking programs on novel antimicrobial agents and novel diagnostics for presentation in pipeline sessions! Here’s what is sought:

“Industry partners are invited to submit antimicrobials that are in preclinical stages of development (Phase II and III preferred) or recently approved after January 2024.
“The pipeline sessions will include antibacterials, antifungals, and antivirals (excluding COVID-19 and HIV).
“The committee also invites companies developing novel diagnostic technologies with a minimum of some preliminary proof of concept data to submit.”

This is a great opportunity to tell the story of your development project! The deadline to submit is Wednesday, June 26 via the application portal. Any questions should be directed to program@idsociety.org. Please share this email with anyone you think might be interested in applying!

In addition, I’ll also note that those with a more general story to tell should look at the BugHub Stage (and the Global BugHub stage). Both BugHub variants seek “presentations that touch on your experience of working in infectious diseases and presentations that ultimately lead to a greater understanding of our diverse field” via a TED Talk-esque speech about your work. The deadline for applications is 26 June, the same as for the pipeline sessions.

I look forward to seeing you there! All best wishes, –jr

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.

John’s Top Recurring Meetings

Virtual meetings are easy to attend, but regular attendance at annual in-person events is the key to building your network and gaining deeper insight. My personal favorites for such in-person meetings are below. Of particular value for developers are the AMR Conference and the ASM-ESCMID conference. Hope to see you there!

27-30 April 2024 (Barcelona, Spain): 34th ECCMID, the annual meeting of the European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. Go here for details.
17-20 Sep 2024 (Porto, Portugal): ASM/ESCMID Joint Conference on Drug Development to Meet the Challenge of Antimicrobial Resistance. Go here for the meeting’s general website. You can’t register (yet) for the 2024 event, but save the date!
16-20 Oct 2024 (Los Angeles, USA): IDWeek 2024, the annual meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. Save the date! More details to come!
25-26 February 2025 (Basel, Switzerland): The 9th AMR Conference 2025. Go here to register!

Upcoming meetings of interest to the AMR community:

[NEW] 9 Apr 2024 (virtual, 830a-10a ET): GARDP’s next REVIVE webinar entitled “Progressing a discovery project – Criteria and challenges.” Register here.
[NEW] 9 Apr 2024 (virtual, 10a-1130a ET): CDC webinar “Impacts of Antimicrobial Resistance on Cancer Care.” Click here for details and to register.
10-11 Apr 2024 (virtual): Sepsis Alliance AMR Conference, a 2-day conference focused on “Practical technologies to manage sepsis and counteract the expanding challenge of antimicrobial resistance.” Go here for details and to register.
26 Apr 2024 (Barcelona, Spain): ESCMID workshop entitled “Using Data Science and Machine Learning for Infection Science: A Hands-on Introduction.” Click here to register or here for more details.
27-30 April 2024 (Barcelona, Spain): 34th ECCMID, the annual meeting of the European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. See Recurring Meetings list, above.
26-31 May 2024 (Montreal, Canada): EDAR7, the McGill AMR Centre’s 7th edition of their Environmental Dimension of Antimicrobial Resistance conference. Go here for details; final abstract deadline is 21 Dec 2023.
28-29 May 2024 (in person, Uppsala, Sweden): Uppsala Antibiotic Days, a broad-ranging 2-day program hosted by the Uppsala Antibiotic Center. Go here for details and to register.
[NEW] 30-31 May 2024 (face-to-face in Rockville, Maryland as well as online, 8.30-5.30p ET on 30 May, 9-2.40p on 31 May): NIAID-sponsored workshop entitled “Towards realizing the promise of adjunctive immune therapy for invasive fungal infections”. The agenda covers host immunity to invasive fungal infections, immune modulators in the context of fungal infections; and strategies for testing immune modulators as adjunctive therapy. Go here for more details and to register.
9-13 June 2024 (in person, Ascona, Switzerland): “New Approaches to Combat Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria, 2nd Edition” is a Sunday-Thursday residential workshop focused on the deep biology of AMR. Sponsored by NCCR AntiResist (a Swiss National Science Foundation consortium), the scientific program has the feel of a Gordon Conference. Space is limited, so you are encouraged to apply promptly — go here for details.
13-17 June 2024 (Atlanta, Georgia): ASM Microbe, the annual meeting of the American Society for Microbiology. You can’t register yet, but you can go here for general details.
17-20 Sep 2024 (Porto, Portugal): ASM/ESCMID Joint Conference on Drug Development to Meet the Challenge of Antimicrobial Resistance. See Recurring Meetings list, above.
16-20 Oct 2024 (Los Angeles, USA): IDWeek 2024, the annual meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. See Recurring Meetings list, above.
19-27 Oct 2024 (Annecy, France, residential in-person program): ICARe (Interdisciplinary Course on Antibiotics and Resistance). Now in its 8th year, Patrice Courvalin directs the program with the support of an all-star scientific committee and faculty. The resulting soup-to-nuts training covers all aspects of antimicrobials, is very intense, and routinely gets rave reviews! Seating is limited, so mark your calendars now if you are interested. Applications open in March 2024 — go here for more details.
4-5 Dec 2024 (in person, Washington, DC): “Fungal Dx 2024: Fungal Diagnostics in Clinical Practice” is a 2-day in-person workshop organized by ISHAM‘s Fungal Diagnostics Working Group. The program and registration links are available at https://fungaldx.com/; the agenda is comprehensive and features an all-star global list of speakers.

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48,015 → 0: Antibacterial discovery is hard. Really, really hard.

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AMR.Solutions

Major job opportunity: Director, BARDA Division of Research, Innovation, and Ventures (DRIVe). Deadline 7 Dec 2019

OHE £40k Policy Innovation Prize: AMR, anyone?

WHO call for data on pre-clinical antifungal R&D projects

GLG-AMR: AMR will lower global life expectancy by 1.8y. The fix pays for itself.

48,015 → 0: Antibacterial discovery is hard. Really, really hard.

AMR.Solutions

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