Dear All (and with thanks to Patricia Bradford for taking the lead on this newsletter): Today, this paper in Nature takes us on a trip to the land of unintended consequences: Turner, A.M., Li, L., Monk, I.R. et al. Rifaximin prophylaxis causes resistance to the last-resort antibiotic daptomycin. Nature 635, 969–977 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-08095-4. A wonkish summary is found below

Dear All, At BEAM’s AMR Conference in Basel, Team CARB-X have today announced their 2025 funding round. Key points: Two themes: (i) Direct-acting small molecule therapeutics for Gram-negatives (same as in 2024) and (ii) diagnostics for typhoid fever in low-resource settings. Applications begin with an expression of interest (EOI). The EOI portal opens on 16

Dear All, I have learned that the Ineos Oxford Institute for Antimicrobial Research (IOI) has started a job search for a Director for the IOI. As background, IOI was created in 2021 with a  £100m donation from INEOS, one of the world’s largest manufacturing companies (Wikipedia; INEOS corporate website). Per their research webpage, IOI is

Dear All, You can’t actually submit your application until ~4 April 2025, but I’ve learned that EU’s HERA (Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Agency) has posted a notice about an intriguing planned call for tenders. Here’s the brief summary currently available online: “This call for tenders aims to speed up the development of a point-of-care

Dear All, EMA have recently posted a call for tenders under which they seek to “procure the services of research organizations to perform studies on the quality, safety and efficacy of human and veterinary medicines that would provide complementary evidence to support regulatory decision-making.” It’s not specifically about AMR (or, indeed, about any particular therapy

Dear All, The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) is scheduled to meet 26-28 Feb 2025 (see links below my signature for deeper background on ACIP and how it advises on vaccine use). At least as of today, the ACIP meeting is scheduled to occur as planned: it has a full agenda that covers meningococcal vaccine, influenza

Dear All, If you are attending ESCMID Global in Vienna this year, mark your calendar for two major events. I hope to see you at both of them! First, there will be a Science Policy Forum afternoon (with networking reception) on Friday, 11 April 2025. Refined over the past two iterations of ECCMID, this event was

Dear All, A huge announcement today backed by the combined power of the Gates Foundation, Novo Nordisk, and Wellcome! I am going to quote liberally from their materials: Responding to the problem of AMR, “… the Novo Nordisk Foundation (NNF), Wellcome, and the Gates Foundation (GF) are jointly launching a new initiative, Gram-Negative Antibiotic Discovery

Dear All, Sadly, I must report that the 27th meeting of PACCARB (the US Presidential Advisory Council on Combatting Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria) planned for 28-29 Jan 2025 has been cancelled “as the new Administration considers its plan for managing federal policy and public communications.” This 22 Jan 2025 article in the New York Times provides additional details