Professor, Tufts UniversityWeekly News Roundup 5-8-13
Basilea Pharmaceutica Ltd. (SIX: BSLN) reported today that new data on drug candidates from its development pipeline were presented at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) held in Berlin, Germany, from April 27 to 30. Basilea is one of the few companies worldwide committed to address the problem of growing resistance against currently available antibiotics and antifungals. The data presented at ECCMID on the antifungal isavuconazole and the two antibiotics ceftobiprole and BAL30072 further substantiate the promising profiles of these innovative product candidates for addressing high unmet medical need. ResearchViews
Surveying the genomes of malaria parasite populations can identify resistance to the frontline malaria drug artemisinin, a worldwide research collaboration has shown. University of Oxford
Top officials from the World Health Organization (WHO) were in Phnom Penh on Thursday to launch a three-year, $400 million plan to prevent the “imminent threat” of an increasingly drug-resistant strain of malaria from escaping the region, a plan that puts Cambodia at its core.
Launched to coincide with World Malaria Day, the Emergency Response to Artemisinin Resistance in the Greater Mekong Sub-region aims to stop that resistance from spreading to Africa, where most of the world’s 216 million people infected each year by the malaria parasite live. The mosquito-borne disease kills more than 600,000 of them annually. WHO
Researchers at Duke University have uncovered a previously unknown molecular network that regulates cell death. The network was discovered during a 7-year study to understand how breast cancer cells resist treatment with the targeted therapy lapatinib. The process of studying four different types of breast cancer They found that in each case, the drug resistance could be traced to the presence of high levels of MDM2, which was found to be blocking cell death signals independent of whether p53 was activated. The findings suggest that other drugs targeting tyrosine kinases may be vulnerable to resistance using this same mechanism. Science Signaling
In a study just published the Infectious Disease Society of America reports that only seven new drugs in clinical development for the treatment of infections caused by multidrug-resistant Gram-negative bacilli (GNB) and none that address the entire spectrum of clinically relevant GNB resistance. The report’s authors also found a dwindling number of pharmaceutical companies investing in antibiotic research and development (R&D), signaling an urgent need for action to address the problem as rates of multi-drug resistant pathogens continue to rise. Clinical Infectious Disease
A new video from Extending the Cure is focused on educating the public that antibiotics are a shared resource in need of preservation. YouTube
American Academy of Microbiology Publishes Report "Moving Targets: Fighting the Evolution of Resistance in Infections, Pests, and Cancer"
This week the American Academy of Microbiology (AAM) published the proceedings of a colloquium held in July 2012 titled “Moving Targets: Fighting the Evolution of Resistance in Infections, Pests, and Cancer”. The Colloquium, chaired by IDR Director Dr. Margaret Riley, and including the participation of IDR Director Celia Schiffer, focused on identifying the common evolutionary mechanisms driving resistance evolution across diverse biological systems, how treatment design and delivery can help avoid or minimize resistance, and effective practices of resistance management. The Colloquium included specialists in antibiotic, antiviral, fungicide, herbicide, and insecticide resistance as well as cancer biologists, biochemists, and theoretical biologists, each of whom deals with Historically the reports of the AAM have been influential with legislators and regulators and receive broad distribution. You can download a copy of this important publication here.