CIMAR's Husain Poonawala Presented Career Development Award for Project on "Efficiency Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing for Non-Turbuculosis Microbacteria"
This K12 award will be used to develop a novel combination antimicrobial susceptibility testing method for Mycobacterium abscessus, a pathogen that has been described as “antibiotic nightmare”. Infections caused by this organism require 12-18 months of combination treatment with 4-6 antibiotics; patients suffer from significant drug toxicity and are often unable to complete treatment. However, there are no validated clinical assays to determine if drug combinations are synergistic or antagonistic. Synergistic combinations will allow the use of shorter, more effective, and less toxic treatment regimens. Working under the mentorship of CIMAR Associate Director and Professor Bree Aldridge, PhD, at TUSM, this project will adapt the DiaMOND assay used for pre-clinical and animal studies of novel tuberculosis drugs to develop a novel diagnostic assay for patient care using clinical microbiology protocols, clinical strains, and clinically relevant drugs.
Professor Kevin Outterson Speaks on Bridging Economics, Health Equity, and Scientific Research in the Fight Against AMR
Kevin Outterson, a professor of health law, ethics and human rights at Boston University, spoke at The Fletcher School’s annual Dr. Maurice S. Segal Lecture on Feb. 29. Outterson’s talk, titled “The Social Ecology of Antimicrobial Resistance,” focused on the science, economics and accessibility of antimicrobial medicines. A longtime friend of the Levy CIMAR, Outterson is also the founding executive director and principal investigator of Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria Biopharmaceutical Accelerator, or CARB-X, a global nonprofit partnership whose mission is to accelerate the development of antibiotics, vaccines and other products that fight against lethal bacteria that have grown resistant to the current circulation of antibacterial products.
Jacinda C. Abdul-Mutakabbir Explores The Intersection Of Racism, Antimicrobial Resistance, And Vaccine Equity
UC San Diego’s Jacinda Abdul-Mutakabbir, PharmD, MPH, AAHIVP presented on “The Intersection of Racism, Antimicrobial Resistance, and Vaccine Equity” for a Black History Month seminar, focusing on healthcare disparities observed across racially and ethnically minoritized groups. The talk was sponsored jointly by the Levy CIMAR, the Tufts Department of Molecular Biology and Microbiology Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion committee, and the Tufts Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. Dr. Abdul-Mutakabbir is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Pharmacy at UC San Diego’s Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences and in the Division of the Black Diaspora and African American Studies.
Silk Provides the Building Blocks to Transform Modern Medicine
One of the things that sets silk apart as a material is how benign it is. The liquid mixture the researchers start with is essentially just silk fibroin (the core protein in silk) and water—it’s nontoxic and chemically neutral. That means it’s easy to add bioactive molecules such as antibiotics or enzymes. Moreover, silk is remarkably good at stabilizing those molecules and keeping them from degrading. For example, the researchers found that blood samples mixed and dried with silk fibroin remained stable at high temperatures for multiple months. They have had similar findings with vaccines—another spinout company, Vaxess, is currently working to develop silk-based vaccine patches for wide-scale use.
Without a Plan to Fight Superbugs, the Cancer Moonshot Will Never Achieve Liftoff
Researchers at the National Institutes of Health recently outlined strategies to tackle President Biden’s Cancer Moonshot initiative, which aims to cut cancer deaths in half over the next 25 years. They made one glaring omission: a plan to combat drug-resistant superbugs. The two public health crises — cancer and drug-resistant infections — are deeply intertwined. Patients with cancer are three times more likely to die of an infection than patients without the disease. Unless we quickly mobilize to fight superbugs, the Cancer Moonshot will never achieve liftoff.
Congress Aims to Tackle Antibiotics Time Bomb
The world’s population is becoming increasingly resistant to antibiotics, and healthcare institutions are sounding the alarm that inaction could result in a breakdown of healthcare systems worldwide within the next 30 years. In 2021, the World Health Organization named antimicrobial resistance as one of the top 10 emerging threats to global health, but lawmakers in the United States have been unable to pass legislation to address the crisis. Levy CIMAR Founding Director and Dean of Tufts School of Medicine, Helen Boucher, MD, spoke on the urgency for Congress to address AMR seriously. She said, \u0022this is a game where there needs to be planning in advance for the threats we know and some we don’t know.\u0022
Overuse of Antibiotics Leading to Dangerous 'Superbugs' Examined by U.S. Senate panel
Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Ed Markey, chair of the panel, said that everyone must use antibiotics responsibly. \u0022Antibiotics alone have extended our average lifespan by 23 years,\u0022 Markey said. \u0022But the rise in antimicrobial resistance threatens to undo 100 years of medical progress.\u0022 Dr. Helen Boucher, Levy CIMAR Founding Director as well as Dean and Professor of Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine, urged the committee to pass a bipartisan bill already introduced this Congress and called on the Biden administration to appoint someone to oversee issues related to antibiotic resistance.
Drug-Resistant Infections & the Immediate and Future Demand for Novel Antimicrobials
Tufts University School of Medicine Dean and Levy CIMAR Founding Director Helen Boucher, MD, joined congressional policymakers, federal policymakers, and other stakeholders interested in addressing drug-resistant infections and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) for an expert panel discussion at Duke University. The panel discussed topics including the current and future threat of drug-resistant infections and antimicrobial resistance, market uncertainties that complicate antimicrobial development and commercialization, and existing and proposed incentives for novel antimicrobials, including the PASTEUR Act.
Superbugs From Their Backyards and Beyond: Brockton High Schoolers Present “Tiny Earth” Findings to Levy CIMAR; Tufts Community
The Levy CIMAR hosted 73 students from Boston-area Brockton High School last week for a scientific poster session where the students presented their unique findings after surveilling antimicrobial resistant (AMR) bugs in their own backyards and around Brockton, and culturing them in the lab. The findings the students presented are part of the Tiny Earth project, a research course originally designed by University of Wisconsin-Madison faculty for college students to discover antibiotics from soil bacteria. Brockton is the first public high school in the country to adopt the curriculum.
High Schoolers Become Scientists in Tufts Lab Science Investigations Summer Course on Antimicrobial Resistance
As student researchers in Lab Science Investigations: Antimicrobial Resistance, high schoolers will have a uniquely immersive experience with the One Health approach that recognizes that the health of people is closely connected to the health of animals and our shared environment. In the case of AMR, excessive use of antibiotics in agriculture, animals, and people, all contribute to this problem.. To address this, as part of the STEM Research Institute, students will hear perspectives from experts in many fields and will work with laboratory research techniques used by engineers, social scientists, biomedical scientists, veterinarians, physicians, drug developers, epidemiologists, healthcare policy experts, and environmental scientists, who work together at the Tufts Levy Center for Integrated Management of Antimicrobial Resistance (CIMAR).
- CIMAR Outreach Day Provides High Schoolers Rare Educational and Networking OpportunitiesMay 23, 2019
- Tufts Researchers Find Link Between Dog-Human Antibiotic Resistance
- IDSA announces Tufts Medical Center Among Recipients of Antimicrobial Stewardship Centers of Excellence Designation
- CIMAR Featured in Spotlight on Research and Collaboration
- CIMAR Joins the Battle Against AMR with Collaborative and Brainstorming Workshop