Novel Strategies for Combatting Anti-Bacterial Resistance - Royal Society of Chemistry, London

The Royal Society of Chemistry Biotechnology Group and sponsors invite you to an exciting one-day symposium entitled: Novel Strategies for Combatting Anti-bacterial Resistance.

The rapid emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria (ABR) that occurred soon after the introduction of antibiotics in the 1940's has become a 21^st century global public health crisis, placing a substantial clinical and financial burden on healthcare providers, clinicians, patients and their families.

In Europe alone, there are ~33,000 deaths per year due to resistant infections (700,000 world-wide) and resistant infections require longer stays in hospital thus increasing costs. Healthcare costs and subsequent productivity losses amount to ~1.5bn euros annually. By 2050, it is predicted that there will be 10 million deaths every year globally and costs worldwide are predicted to soar to £78 trillion GBP ($100 trillion USD).

The present ABR crisis has been attributed to the overuse and injudicious prescribing of antibiotics, as well as a lack of new drug development by the pharmaceutical industry. To avert this crisis a coordinated, cross-sector, global response is urgently required to tackle ABR, implementing new prescribing policies and encouraging renewed research efforts directed towards the

This symposium brings together some of the most influential researchers involved in these endeavours and should be of interest to a wide audience of basic scientists, medicinal chemists, microbiologists, clinicians and geneticists.

Programme

09.30 COFFEE and REGISTRATION

10.00 SESSION 1 – Chair: Dr Irene Francois

10.05 Prof. Sir Anthony Coates, Institute of Infection & Immunity, St George's, University of London Antibiotic combinations can kill highly resistant bacteria. An alternative to new chemical entities?

10.40 Prof. Gerard Wright, Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research, McMaster University, Ontario, Canada. Back to the future: natural products in antibiotic discovery.

11.15 Prof. Martha Clokie,  Dept. of Genetics & Genome Biology, University of Leicester How significant will bacteriophages be to solving the AMR crisis?

11.50 LUNCH AND POSTER SESSION

13.30 SESSION 2 – Chair: Dr Mary Phillips-Jones

13.35 Prof. Laura Piddock, Institute of Microbiology & Infection, University of Birmingham Antibiotic resistance plasmids and identification of inhibitors of transmission

14.10 Prof. Peter Monk, Department of Infection, Immunity & Cardiovascular Disease, University of Sheffield Medical School The host cell surface as an antibacterial drug target 14.45 Dr Paul Race, School of Biochemistry, University of Bristol Antibiotic discovery in the abyss 15.20 TEA

16.05 SESSION 3 – Chair: Dr Paul Race

16.10 Dr Mary Phillips-Jones, School of Biosciences, University of Nottingham Strategies for combatting resistance to a last-line therapy: understanding and exploiting vancomycin interactions

16.45 Dr David Powell, Summit Therapeutics plc, Milton, Oxfordshire New mechanism antibiotics 17.20 POSTER PRIZE AWARD & CLOSING REMARKS: Dr Paul Race

Posters

There will be a poster session with posters being displayed throughout the day. PhD students, post-doctoral fellows and Early Career Scientists who are RSC members and who wish to present a poster can apply for a personal Travel Grant via a link on the RSC website under FUNDING. (No funds for this purpose are available from the organisers).

Registration

Online registration is now open. Please include the delegate name in the instruction and send a copy of the payment advice with the application form. The fees include attendance at the sessions, lunch and refreshments. The organisers are not registered for VAT and tax invoices cannot be issued.

Registration Fees

RSC Members £130

Non-members £145

Student/Retired RSC members £65

Student/Retired non-members £90

Further information

Please consult the web-page or contact the organizers:

Dr Irene François (irene.francois@ntlworld.com )

Dr Mary Phillips-Jones (mary.phillips-jones@nottingham.ac.uk)

Dr Paul Race (paul.race@bristol.ac.uk).