The first commercially-available antibiotics, the sulphonamides, were discovered through a trial-and-error approach screening various coal-tar dyes and serendipity played a major role in the discovery of penicillin in the late 1920s.
DOI: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(22)00087-3/fulltext Author: Ramanan Laxminarayan, founder and director of the Centre for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy (CDDEP) and GARDP Board Chair Preview: As … The overlooked pandemic of antimicrobial resistance
Antibiotic resistance is inevitable1,2. No ‘gorillacillin’ or ‘tyrannosauromycin’ will ever come along and end the problem of resistance. This is not a sprint, and injudiciously throwing short-term money at the problem is not the solution3. This is a marathon. And indeed, in the short term, the pipeline has 700% more antibiotics in it in 2021 than it did in 2004 (43 vs. 6)4,5.
Antifungal resistance is occurring increasingly often in the most important human pathogenic fungi, such as Candida spp and Aspergillus fumigatus. Usually, resistance development in the fungus takes place inside patients during long periods of treatment or prophylaxis with antifungal drugs.
Infections in cancer patients are a very common complication making the routine use of antibiotics lifesaving in the treatment of these patients. As many as 1 in 5 cancer patients undergoing treatment will need antibiotics during their treatment1. Infections in cancer patients may be related to an immunosuppressed state due to alteration of the underlying immune system caused by the primary cancer, as is the case in some hematologic malignancies.
The development of vaccines for COVID-19 has been a magnificent achievement. At least five of these vaccines have been trialled in various European countries or North America. Table 1 summarises the vaccines and their characteristics. For further reading, I recommend Comparing the COVID-19 Vaccines: How Are They Different? by Kathy Katella1. In this article, I shall discuss various statistical aspects of five large phase 3 trials used to support vaccine registration in order to learn what key aspects of their success could inform other fields such as antimicrobial R&D.
To celebrate its 50th anniversary, the British Society of for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy are inviting a select number of experts to share what they see as being the 21st-century solutions to one of the biggest and most complex challenges of our generation: antimicrobial resistance. In this post, Laura Piddock explores the challenges involved in re-stimulating the antimicrobial drug development market.
The overuse and misuse of antimicrobials in humans is a core driver of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). It has become increasingly clear that this overuse and misuse is global. And that access to antibiotics – without access to quality healthcare, diagnostics, stewardship and regulatory control – can result in negative health outcomes..
With the ever-increasing threat of antimicrobial resistance, there has been considerable discussion about approaches for new therapeutics. This is especially so for Gram-negative bacteria many of which the U.S. Center for Disease Control (CDC) and World Health Organization (WHO) consider serious or urgent antimicrobial resistance threats and for which development of new treatments is critical.