Antibiotics: Solving the crisis

Professor Michael Barrett, University of Glasgow, UK

2021 was the 80th anniversary of the first administration of penicillin to a patient: Constable Albert Alexander in the UK in Feb 1941. The World Congress offers an appropriate opportunity to showcase contemporary antibiotics research. Penicillin was discovered by a Scotsman, Alexander Fleming, who hailed from a Village just 20 miles south of Glasgow (the location of the World Congress).

The discovery of penicillin inspired a golden age of antibiotic discovery and transformed human health, offering a future potentially free of bacterial disease which had, previously, been a leading cause of human death. By the twenty first Century, however, the tide was turning. Resistance to antimicrobials was growing and efforts to develop new antibiotics had stalled
A risk of returning to a pre-antibiotic age has been identified and efforts to renew antibiotic discovery are increasingly urgent. This symposium, linked to the keynote presentation from professor dame Sally Davies, will showcase a range of new approaches to antibiotic discovery from leading researchers in the UK and internationally, covering academia, industry and the public-private partnership sector.

One Health approaches to tackling antimicrobial resistance
Professor Mark Woolhouse
Edinburgh University, UK

GARDP: Global solutions to the antimicrobial crisis
Professor Laura Piddock
Scientific Director, Global Antibiotic Research and Development Partnership (GARDP), Switzerland

Oral communication speaker - to be confirmed in 2023.

Antimicrobial resistance: innovation can avert the silent pandemic, but can we sustain it?
Professor Manos Perros
ENTASIS Therapeutics, Boston, USA

Recent Advances in Antimicrobial Drug Discovery
Dr Rebecca McHugh
Post-Doctoral Research Associate, University of Glasgow, UK