John Rex

Life Frozen In Time: Bacteria in Unusual Places

Dear All, Pop culture often garbles science in the name of a good storyline but sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction. Let’s today consider the iconic trope of being frozen in time and coming back to life. This sort of feat is usually limited on the screen to the likes of superheroes but a

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Novo Nordisk Foundation joins CARB-X!

Dear All (and with thanks to Damiano, Peter and Aleks for co-authoring), Some great news to start off 2024 on the right foot: the Novo Nordisk Foundation has announced that it will fund CARB-X with a three-year grant of USD 25 million! The Novo Nordisk Foundation joins four governments (Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States)

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EPA (part 3): Streptomycin spray on citrus? Not any more!

This is the third of a 4-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, and finally a 4th newsletter (27 Jan 2024) containing some additional resources. Dear All, Your alert co-reader in Australia (Christine Carson at U Western Australia), wrote recently to alert

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JPIAMR: AMR Interventions call for both fungi and bacteria!

Dear All, Happy New Year! I hope you were able to relax with friends and family during the year-end festivities! I have a small backlog of notes that will follow over the next few days but for tonight we have a brief note about a funding opportunity with a short timeline. JPIAMR have today opened an

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Cinema to Inspire Antibiotic Discovery: Holiday Edition

Dear All, The holidays are upon us, and this seems like a timely reason to send an update to the Movies to Discover Antibiotics By newsletter from 2020. Since sending that particular newsletter, suggestions from readers have been added to the list and I’ve also created YouTube videos exploring some of them. If you are in

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New NIAID BAA: Vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics

Dear All, Another AMR-focused BAA (Broad Agency Announcement) is out, now from NIAID! Entitled “2024 NIAID Omnibus Broad Agency Announcement: Development of Medical Countermeasures for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases,” you can find the solicitation here. The BAA calls for proposals in 3 research areas: Research Area 001: Vaccine Candidates: The goal here is technology platforms

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How Italy should Push and Pull: New report as Italy takes the 2024 G7 chair

Dear All (and with thanks to Damiano for taking the lead on this newsletter): In advance of Italy assuming the G7 Presidency for 2024, The  European House – Ambrosetti (an Italian think tank and management consulting firm) published a new report on 15 November 2023 entitled “Value and sustainability of antibiotics as essential tools for the healthcare

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Pan-EU/EEA Pull incentive: A proposal by DRIVE-AB alumni!

Dear All (and with thanks to Kevin for co-authoring), In a clear and compelling policy paper, a dozen of the DRIVE-AB alumni have proposed a concept for a pan-EU/EEA Pull Incentive. To follow the plot, here are the key points as a refresh: To date, the only strong, active Pull model is the UK NHS project that

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Fireside Chat with BARDA’s Branch Chief for Antimicrobials

Note: Be sure to take advantage of the BARDA Industry Day(s) event that occurs Monday-Tuesday of this coming week … see newsletter and forward calendar for details. Dear All, In what could be called Part 2 of Excellent 2023 ASM/ESCMID Talks (read the newsletter on Jen Cohen’s talk on how manufacturing underpins both access and

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Japan Pulls for Pandemic Preparedness: Nikkei FT Conference

Dear All, As we discussed in the 5 Nov 2023 “Pulling for Pandemic Preparedness” newsletter, AMR is a global threat: resistance in one part of the world can suddenly appear in your hospital. As an example of that sort of threat, Jason Gale’s 30 Oct 2023 newsletter entitled “Untreatable Typhoid Should Make You Worry About Poop”

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