Dear All:
Happy New Year! I hope everyone was able to take a least a brief break over the holidays. Two things for today.
First, there are two meetings in January and one in February that have just popped onto my radar. See the meetings calendar for a pair of Keystone Symposia on the microbiome, a National Academies project meeting on AMR, and a meeting of PACCARB.
Second, CDC’s Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion has a new Request For Proposals (RFP) entitled “Safe Healthcare, Epidemiology, and Prevention Research Development (SHEPheRD)” that is available online at https://beta.sam.gov.
Proposals are due for this substantial RFP by 3 Mar 2021. The shortest online version I found begins on page 7 of this .pdf from the RFP’s home page. Quoting from an email announcing the program:
“This funding opportunity will help CDC to continue partnering with external experts to address questions over the next 5 years related to healthcare-associated infection (HAI) prevention research, including antibiotic resistance and work across healthcare settings.
“This indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contract is for healthcare systems, academic, and other research partners. Awardees will perform quality improvement projects, HAI prevention research, and other healthcare epidemiology studies in the following five domains to improve healthcare quality:
- “Develop and implement research protocols to prevent HAIs and other adverse healthcare events, including study design, statistical support, literature review, and data management and analysis.
- “Implement research projects in multiple healthcare sites to improve quality of care and prevent HAIs and other adverse healthcare events.
- “Conduct formative research, guidance development, and research translation to improve healthcare practices, a new opportunity to contribute to the evaluation and dissemination of products aimed at improving healthcare practices and bridging the public health and healthcare divide.
- “Develop and implement research projects focused on HAIs and other adverse healthcare events in low- and middle-income countries.
- “Review, recommend, and accelerate the development and use of surveillance protocols for the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) that extend or enhance the use of information technology and healthcare data in electronic form for surveillance purposes.”
Wow! And while you’re looking at this, don’t forget about CDC’s call for AMR-related proposals (newsletter) that has a 13 Jan 2021 deadline.
Stay safe … and all best wishes for 2021, –jr
PS: I am experimenting with a YouTube channel that provides short video discussions of AMR-related topics. Feedback would be gratefully received as would suggestions for discussion topics!
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 (most current list is here):
- CDC has released a Broad Agency Announcement with that includes multiple opportunities for AMR-related work. See this newsletter for details. The deadline is 13 Jan 2021.
- The US Department of Defense is funding pre-clinical research on small molecules vs. P. aeruginosa. See this newsletter for details. The deadline is 18 Feb 2021.
- The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Applicant Assistance Program (AAP) provides no cost support for companies planning to apply for a Phase II, Fast Track, or Direct-to-Phase II SBIR or STTR Award. Go here for details.
- Novo REPAIR Impact Fund closed its most recent round on 31 Jul 2020. Go here for current details.
- CARB-X recently announced that their existing resources will be reserved to fund their existing portfolio (75 total awards, and counting and they conclude contracting on prior rounds), including future options on those awards. New rounds from CARB-X will occur only after new funding is obtained in 2021.
- The Global AMR R&D Hub’s dynamic dashboard (link) summarizes funders and projects by geography, stage, and more.
- It’s not a funder, but AiCuris’ AiCubator offers incubator support to very early stage projects. Read more about it here.
- Finally, you might also be interested in the most current lists of R&D incentives (link) and priority pathogens (link)
Upcoming meetings of interest to the AMR community (most current list is here):
- [NEW] 5-8 Jan 2021 (online, from 11a EST each day): Meeting #3 of the project entitled “Examining the Long-term Health and Economic Effects of Antimicrobial Resistance in the United States” sponsored by the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine. This project was described in a previous newsletter and appears to be part of the run-up to creating the next iteration of the US National Action Plan (NAP) for Combatting Antimicrobial Resistant Bacteria (CARB). Go here for more details and to register.
- 14 Jan 2021 (online, 5-6.30p CET): GARDP-sponsored webinar entitled “Manipulating the host response to treat infections,” moderated by Neeloffer Mookherjee. Go here to register.
- [NEW] 18-20 Jan 2021 (online, 10.00a EST to ???): A pair of virtual Keystone Symposia entitled “Harnessing the Microbiome for Disease Prevention and Therapy” and “The Microbiome: From Mother to Child”. Not a lot specifically on infection, but the deep biology typical of Keystone’s programs looks fascinating. Go here and here to register.
- 26-28 Jan 2021 (online, runs ~7.30a-5.00p Central each day): 4th Annual Texas Medical Center Antimicrobial Resistance and Stewardship Conference. Sponsored by McGovern Medical School, ARLG, and the Gulf Coast Consortia, the agenda includes both poster sessions and keynotes. The call for abstracts closes 18 Dec 2020. Go here for more details.
- 2-3 Feb 2021 (online, 1-5p GMT): Antimicrobial Chemotherapy Conference 2021 sponsored by BSAC and in collaboration with the Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Sciences (HIPS), the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF) and the International Research Alliance for Antibiotic Discovery and Development (IRAADD, a JPIAMR-funded network). Go here for details and to register.
- [NEW] 10-11 Feb 2021 (online, 10a-4p EST): Virtual public meeting of PACCARB (US Presidential Advisory Council on Combatting Antimicrobial Resistant Bacteria). Go here for details.
- 25 Feb 2021 (online, 5-6.30p CET): GARDP-sponsored webinar entitled “Manipulating the host response to treat infections,” moderated by Michael Mourez. Go here to register.
- 10-12 Mar 2021 (Stellenbosch, South Africa): The University of Cape Town’s H3D Research Centre will celebrate its 10th anniversary with a symposium covering the Centre’s research on Malaria, TB, Neglected Tropical Diseases, and AMR. Go here to register; abstract deadline is 15 Nov 2020.
- 9-12 Jul 2021 (Vienna): Annual ECCMID meeting (#31)
- 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.
- 24-29 May 2021 (online and in Geneva): ESPID 2021, the 39th Annual Meeting of the European Society for Paediatric Infectious Diseases. Save-the-date announcement is here, details to follow.
- 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.
- 27 Jun-2 Jul 2021 (Ventura, CA): Gordon Research Conference entitled “Antimicrobial Peptides”. Go here for details, go here for the linked 26-27 Jun Gordon Research Seminar that precedes it.
- 5-21 Aug 2021 (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.
- 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. Bonus feature: For obvious reasons, the course didn’t happen in 2020! But as a celebration of the course’s 5th year, a webinar version was held on 29 Oct 2020: go here to stream it.
- 6-11 Mar 2022 (Il Ciocco, Tuscany): Gordon Research Conference entitled “New Antibacterial Discovery and Development”. Go here for details, go here for the linked 5-6 Mar Gordon Research Seminar that precedes it.
