Levy CIMAR's Shira Doron on Why Rising COVID-19 Levels in Wastewater is Concerning
Tufts Medical Center Hospital Epidemiologist and Levy CIMAR Core Faculty Member Dr. Shira Doron discusses the increase in COVID-19 cases in Massachusetts, the role of social gatherings in spreading the virus, coronavirus in wastewater, and shortages of critical drugs in her weekly appearance on WCVB. ‘The data suggests that right now, every infected person is on average transmitting the infection to more than one other person,\u0022 says Doron. \u0022 Therefore, if we change nothing at all, we can expect to see the numbers continue to rise faster and faster. The time is now to double down on those efforts to avoid situations.\u0022
How Researchers are Revamping Antimicrobial Drugs
There’s a long road from discovering a potential drug to getting it approved for human use. Levy CIMAR’s Bree Aldridge, Ph.D., thinks the process could be speeded up by using a computerized imaging system that looks at how bacterial cells are deformed by a drug. Such changes can give hints as to what part of a cell’s biology the drug is acting on. \u0022We think we know what a drug does, but then if you look at how it actually destroys the cells, we can sometimes see that it’s a little bit different,\u0022 Aldridge says. \u0022This sort of method allows us to rapidly determine whether a drug is acting like known drugs or whether a drug is doing something that’s novel.\u0022 If it’s novel, it might be a class that bacteria are not yet resistant to.
U.S. Updates Antibiotic Resistance Plan: Here's What's New
The U.S. government released an update to its National Action Plan for Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria (NAP CARB), which aims to combat antibiotic-resistant bacteria and subsequent infections. There are more than 2.8 million antibiotic-resistant infections—and 35,000 deaths—in the U.S. each year. Among other things, the Plan aims to slow the growth of resistant bacteria and prevent infections from spreading, strengthen surveillance efforts, and advance development and use of rapid diagnostic tests.
A Call for Global Monitoring of WASH in Wet Markets
\u0022Regardless of the role wet markets will play in future respiratory virus epidemics, wet markets pose additional zoonotic health risks that must be prioritised by global health researchers and policy makers. Specifically, wet markets could be hotspots for enteric pathogen transmission because of poor and unregulated hygiene conditions. … Building improved wet market infrastructure is urgently needed, particularly in low-resource settings.\u0022 — Levy CIMAR Core Faculty members Drs. Maya Nadimpalli and Amy Pickering
Center for Antimicrobial Resistance Renamed for Stuart B. Levy
The Center for Integrated Management of Antimicrobial Resistance, a collaborative effort supported by Tufts University and Tufts Medical Center, has been renamed the Stuart B. Levy Center for Integrated Management of Antimicrobial Resistance (Levy CIMAR) at Tufts, in honor of the pioneering antibiotic-resistance researcher. Levy, a professor emeritus of molecular biology and microbiology at Tufts University School of Medicine and a staff physician at Tufts Medical Center, passed away in September 2019 at the age of 80. He retired in 2018 after 47 years at Tufts.
As a Virus Ravages the World, Antibiotic Makers are in Disarray
COVID-19 can be accompanied by secondary bacterial infections with deadly consequences. But the industry that researches and produces antibiotics to fight such illnesses has been upended — and the pandemic is only making things worse. Now, medical experts worry about the long-term health implications of not having cutting-edge antibiotics in the pharmaceutical pipeline. Per CIMAR Dir. Dr. Helen Boucher: \u0022This need to have a robust and renewable pipeline of antibiotics has really never been greater.
IDSA, APHA Call on White House to Reverse Handling of COVID-19 Data
A letter sent by the leadership of the Infectious Disease Society of America (IDSA) including board member, CIMAR Dir. Dr. Helen Boucher, as well as those from dozens of other organizations calls on the Trump administration to reverse its decision to bypass the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in \u0022the collection and analysis of COVID-19 patient data.\u0022
New Cell Profiling Method Could Speed TB Drug Discovery
A new technology that combines high throughput imaging and machine learning could speed discovery of drugs to fight tuberculosis, which for generations has killed more people worldwide than any other disease caused by a single agent—4,000 people every day. \u0022We urgently need shorter, more effective TB therapies, and MorphEUS enables us to screen through drug candidates, see how they actually affect the cell, and learn which drugs have unique ways to kill the M. tb,\u0022 says CIMAR’s Dr.Bree Aldridge.
Dr. Helen Boucher Discusses The COVID19 Infection Curve, What To Expect In Mass.
Nearly 20,000 people have now tested positive for the novel coronavirus in Massachusetts. Well over 500 have died. With the surge in COVID-19 hospitalizations fast approaching in Massachusetts, WBUR’s Weekend Edition joined Dr. Helen Boucher, chief of the Division of Geographic Medicine and Infectious Diseases at Tufts Medical Center, to discuss where we are now on the infection curve and what to expect in the coming weeks.\n\n
CIMAR and Tufts Medical Center's Dr. Shira Doron Discusses What SARS-CoV2 Antibody Tests Might Reveal
Dr. Shira Doron, Core Faculty Member of CIMAR and hospital epidemiologist at Tufts Medical Center, answers questions about what the hospital is seeing in patients and what antibody tests available may show. She also discusses the anticipated surge in COVID-19 hospitalizations in Massachusetts and more.\n
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