Dear All (wonkish but stick with it … I’m going to try very hard to de-wonk it; addendum: see also the follow-up newsletters, most recently on 22 Dec 2025), In an absolutely terrifying paper and technical report in today’s issue of Science, we are introduced in detail to the concept of “mirror” bacteria in which
Dear All (addendum: see also the 22 Dec 2025 follow-up newsletter), I wrote in a 12 Dec 2024 newsletter (“Mirror Bacteria: An AMR threat of unprecedented magnitude”) about the really disturbing possible threat from creation of “mirror” bacteria in which all chiral elements of the bacterium are replaced by their enantiomeric counterparts. Such bacteria are predicted to
Dear All (and with thanks to Patricia Bradford for co-authoring this newsletter), When you are seeking novelty, antibacterial discovery is hard … really, really, REALLY hard. And it gets even harder if you want activity vs. Gram-negative bacteria. As the latest proof of this, a paper from GARDP’s Blasco et al. describing use of an
Note: As always, please use the copy of the newsletter posted at https://amr.solutions/ if you have trouble with links in this newsletter. Dear All, As I hope you know from the meeting calendar in this newsletter, the 2nd edition of GAMRIC, the Global AMR Innovators Conference, will be 22-24 Sep 2026 in Lisbon, Portugal. Although only the 2nd year
Dear All, The 8 Dec 2025 newsletter entitled “Phage therapy: Regulatory perspectives from TATFAR” generated a fair bit of commentary! I’ve now added several post-newsletter addenda to the online copy of the newsletter and I thought the amount of new material warranted a summary of same via this follow-up newsletter. If I’ve missed a resource,
Dear All, Integrating perspectives from EC HERA, EMA, Health Canada, Norway, UK MHRA, US FDA, and US NIH, the Transatlantic Task Force on AMR (TATFAR)’s Phage Working Group have just published a detailed summary of information on phage therapy with particular focus on its regulatory aspects. Here are the links you need: [key paper for this
Dear All (with thanks to Vega Masignani for co-authoring this newsletter), While the work needed to create new antibacterial agents is the primary topic of this newsletter, the need for vaccines of all types is definitely part of our community’s joint remit. As discussed in the 29 Mar 2021 newsletter (“Vaccines to turn back the
See also This related newsletter: 14 Jul 2022, entitled “WHO Vaccine Pipeline Review; CDC On Impact Of COVID On AMR.” This 20 Oct 2024 report from WHO: “Estimating the impact of vaccines in reducing antimicrobial resistance and antibiotic use: technical report” This 25 Apr 2024 paper in Lancet Global Health by Hausdorff and colleagues: “Facilitating
Dear All, On 26 Nov 2026, the Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance & Research Initiative (AMRSRN) of the Indian Council on Medical Research (ICMR) released its report on AMR across India for 2024. The report is the eighth since AMRSRN started publishing such reports in 2017; the report for 2024 is here and links to all the prior reports
Dear All, WHO have just (2 Oct 2025) released a pair of reports on therapeutics and diagnostics for bacterial pathogens, with a focus on how these advance our tools for priority bacterial pathogens. Here are the links you need: WHO 2025 update on the preclinical and clinical antibacterial pipeline Title: “Analysis of antibacterial agents in