Perspectives on restoring the antibiotic ecosystem: ACS ID, June 2020 issue

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:



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.
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