Submitted by Administrator on Fri, 21/07/2017 - 14:24
Research Tackling Antimicrobial Resistance: Social and Biological Dimensions- 2017 was coordinated by Cambridge Infectious Diseases on 6th July 2017 at Clare College, Cambridge. Posted: 9 June 2017
Superbugs that are resistant to all antibiotics are threatening many of the key advances of modern medicine. The chief medical officer of the United Kingdom, Dame Sally Davies — who calls antibiotic resistance as serious a threat as terrorism — recently published a book titled Drugs Don’t Work, where she describes a future world of simple infections causing mass mortality.
Recognizing that antibiotic resistance is a global problem, and that antibiotic use is greatly influenced by local culture, CID coordinated a meeting to consider both biological and human dimensions, aiming to provide insight into current research on how different environments (animal and human host tissues, hospitals, urban, and agricultural environments) affect the evolution and transmission of resistance, and discussing novel interventions to tackle the AMR challenge, including innovative approaches to reducing societal demand, novel approaches to drug design, biologics and vaccines.
The purpose of the meeting was to bring together researchers across the Cambridge campus, affiliated institutes and from around the UK, with contributions from across the biomedical sciences, public health, veterinary medicine, and medical humanities (anthropology, medical history, sociology, geography, etc.). The meeting was held 6 June at Clare College Cambridge; 108 people attended.
The Senior Pro-Vice-Chancellor PVC Duncan Maskell opened and closed the meeting, with sessions including biology of resistance mechanisms and drug targets, intelligent surveillance, AMR: Social, economic and policy aspects, how can we work across disciplines to defeat antimicrobial resistance globally?
This interdisciplinary event is jointly organised by the Cambridge Infectious Diseases Interdisciplinary Research Centre and CRASSH. Funding to enable this meeting has been received in part from The Wellcome Trust Institutional Strategic Support Fund (ISSF).
You can download abstracts and bios of the speakers at the meeting here
