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Study Challenges Assumptions About How Tuberculosis Bacteria Grow
The rod-shaped tuberculosis (TB) bacterium, which the World Health Organization has once again ranked as the top infectious disease killer globally, is the first single-celled organism ever observed to maintain a consistent growth rate throughout its life cycle. These findings, reported by Tufts University School of Medicine researchers on November 15 in the journal Nature Microbiology, overturn core beliefs of bacterial cell biology and hint at why the deadly pathogen so readily outmaneuvers our immune system and antibiotics. “The most basic thing you can study in bacteria is how they grow and divide, yet our study reveals that the TB pathogen is playing by a completely different set of rules compared to easier-to-study model organisms,” says CIMAR’s Bree Aldridge, PhD, a professor of Molecular Biology and Microbiology and of Biomedical Engineering at Tufts University and an author of the paper.
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UN Meeting Highlights Antimicrobial Resistance “Epiphany”—Lack of Antibiotic Access Is a Key Driver
In 2021 alone, drug-resistant bacterial pathogens contributed to 4.71 million global deaths and were directly responsible for 1.14 million of those. And although these tolls were down slightly from 2019, researchers forecast a nearly 70% increase in the number of annual deaths directly attributable to AMR by midcentury, reaching 1.91 million in 2050. More than 39 million people, they predict, will die from antibiotic-resistant infections over the next 25 years. CIMAR’s Helen Boucher, MD, Dean of the Tufts University School of Medicine, has had the “sad duty” of treating patients affected by AMR, from an otherwise healthy young mother whose urinary tract infection ended up requiring a weeks-long hospital stay to a patient with heart failure whose bacterial infection wasn’t treatable.
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Are Probiotics All They’re Cracked Up to Be?
Probiotics have been touted as a treatment for everything from diarrhea to mental health disorders, with sales of probiotic supplements expected to exceed $65 billion globally in 2024. Plenty of consumers swear by probiotics, but there is little conclusive evidence that unequivocally supports their effectiveness for any particular health issue, and some Tufts experts agree that while ongoing research into probiotics is promising, more large-scale studies are needed before they can strongly recommend them. There is some evidence that probiotics can be useful for certain digestive issues, including lactose intolerance, C.Difficile infections, and a form of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) called pouchitis. But evidence for many of the other claims is currently scant or nonexistent. When probiotics have the desired outcome, it’s not always clear how or why, according to CIMAR’s Ben Wolfe, PhD, an associate professor of biology at the School of Arts and Sciences.
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Levy CIMAR's Lab Science Investigations Course: Working Across Boundaries to Engage Students in AMR Research
Lab Science Investigations (LSI) is a two-week hands-on summer research experience at Tufts for high school students. It’s also an interdisciplinary program that raises awareness of the growing problem of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), a partnership between centers and schools across Tufts, and a collaborative learning group of people of different ages, academic levels, experiences, cultures, and perspectives. Best of all, it’s a lot of fun. Nicole Ma, a junior at North Quincy High School, attended LSI this summer. She said she would highly recommend the program to other science-interested high schoolers. “I would tell them, definitely go,” she said. “It’s a great experience. You’ll learn a lot and you’ll probably miss it when it’s over.”
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APUA Joins United Nations General Assembly High-Level Meeting on AMR
Joined by leaders of global organisations including the World Health Organization (WHO), the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH), the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), and the World Bank as well as pressure groups and civil society organisations, these premiers are in New York to address a single theme – antimicrobial resistance (AMR). The main goal will be the agreement of a political declaration, developed over the past months, which sets out the scope of the AMR challenge, not only for human health but also for animals and plants, and the consequences for equitable global development, the economy, food safety and security.
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How You Can Practice Pharmaceutical Safety
Following instructions provided by a patient insert can also help combat antimicrobial resistance—when antimicrobial drugs become ineffective to treat pathogens like fungi or bacteria. To prevent antimicrobial resistance as a consumer, make sure to take antibiotic medications only when they’ve been prescribed to you. “Don’t take the drugs that have been prescribed for your family members, or give drugs prescribed for one child to another,” Beninger said. Ensure that you complete a course of antibiotics that has been prescribed—even if you’re feeling better.
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“It’s Easier to Take a Pill Than Fix a Problem:” Qualitative Analysis of Barriers and Facilitators to Antimicrobial Stewardship Program Implementation in Carceral Settings
Widespread antibiotic prescribing contributes to globally emerging antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Despite stewardship recommendations by the Infectious Diseases Society of America, there is a lack of literature identifying barriers and facilitators to antimicrobial stewardship programs (ASPs) in United States (U.S.) carceral settings. People with criminal-legal experience—a term used to describe persons who are either currently incarcerated or have been incarcerated—are at increased risk for several infectious diseases (e.g., methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), pneumococcal disease, meningococcus). Two former CIMAR Summer Scholars and several CIMAR members contributed to this publication.
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Podcast: A Multitiered Mentorship Model — Fostering Inclusive Pathways to Health Careers
NEJM presents an interview with Dr. Revati Masilamani, Program Lead for CIMAR’s Laboratory Science Investigations summer course for high schoolers, on a multitiered mentoring program aimed at supporting pathways to biomedical careers for students from diverse backgrounds. Tufts’ STEM+M Connect program uses multitiered near-peer mentoring to help students navigate key academic transition points by building career awareness, a sense of belonging, and social networks.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.