Note: World Antibiotic Awareness Week begins tomorrow and there are multiple updates to the meeting calendar … please look for the red text in the meeting calendar! Dear All, For those of you in the UK, particularly if you are based in the London area, there’s a chance for you to be part of the upcoming
Dear All (prepare for something that is delightfully different and marvelously wonkish AND with thanks to Lance Price for co-authoring this newsletter), Continuing with the theme in the 15 Aug 2025 newsletter (“Global livestock resistome: Antibiotic resistance is widespread!”) of ways to use sequencing of samples from the environment, we have today an amazing paper in
Dear All (and with thanks to Lance Price for co-authoring this deeply wonkish newsletter), Today we turn to the idea of examining livestock manure for the presence of antibiotic resistance genes. You can easily see how this idea plays into the question of how to track and control AMR. Before we dive into the paper, however,
Dear All (and with thanks to Vega Masignani for co-authoring this newsletter), Waaaay back in 2019 (pre-COVID … remember that?), Wellcome put out a call for grants focused on understanding the value of vaccines in combatting AMR (4 June 2019 newsletter entitled “Why vaccines for AMR? What is their value? Grant opportunity for research on
Dear All, D-Day and the momentous Normandy landings were 81 years ago today. In a marvelous new article on bbc.com (and with thanks to Mike Hodges for pointing it out), we can read about how “Handwritten notes reveal Churchill’s penicillin concern ahead of D-Day.” The magic of penicillin was evident … but there wasn’t enough of
Dear All (and with a wonkish alert!), The idea of more (and better) vaccines to prevent (or even be part of treating) bacterial infections has long intrigued. We certainly do have several good bacterial vaccines, but why not more? As part of this ongoing discussion, I really enjoyed a paper that came out back in
Dear All (unapologetically wonkish … very important material!), Let’s set the scene today by considering two quotes: Prosaic: “The successful treatment of patients with cancer has long depended on the capacity to manage infectious complications.” (Shropshire 2025, cited below) Blunt translation: “Your cancer will be controlled, but then you may die of infection.” (Abdul Ghafur,
Dear All (with thanks to Louise for co-authoring and with a wonkish alert … settle in for the ride!), Today’s newsletter discusses the intersection of three themes around antibiotic access. Recall first how the paper by Baraldi et al. (1 Dec 2024 newsletter) taught us that there are at least six variations to the idea
Dear All, We often talk about the problem of lack of access to new antibiotics. In late 2021, for example, we explored data showing that multi-year delays in access to new antibiotics were common even in high income countries (19 Aug 2021 newsletter with YouTube discussion). But as we’ll learn today, that analysis considers only one
Dear All, Back in 2022, I wrote a newsletter about the World Health Organization putting out a call to form a Task Force of AMR Survivors. The Task Force of Antimicrobial Resistance Survivors was established last October and its members have been busy ever since! There are currently 12 members, each serving 2 years, and they