Author: Anna Sundin

Pew Trust has launched a publicly available interactive tool to provide data to help scientists around the world to identify urgently needed new antibiotics.

The pipeline of products in development to treat or prevent bacterial infections is stagnant and cannot meet today’s urgent and growing patient needs. Experts have repeatedly identified information sharing as essential to spurring innovation but have had difficulty benefiting from the insights of others.

Previously, there was no publicly available mechanism for sharing data and expertise across the antibiotic discovery research community. To help address these challenges, Pew created a cloud-based data-sharing tool called “SPARK”. It is a digital platform allowing researchers to share data, ideas, learn from past research and insights to spur the discovery of innovative new antibiotics needed in the battle against the growing global threat of drug-resistant bacteria or superbugs.

The information in SPARK is collected and curated by a team of antibiotic discovery experts and includes chemical and biological data relevant to understanding how molecules can get into Gram-negative bacteria and stay there, a critical factor in designing drugs that can defeat these increasingly hard-to-treat pathogens. SPARK integrates chemical and biological data from published studies as well as previously unpublished data, and provides an opportunity for real-time collaboration among scientists in industry, academia, government, and the nonprofit sector.

This information-sharing platform is of immense importance to JPIAMR and its funded researchers belonging to the antibiotic discovery community. SPARK provides antibiotic discovery data and cutting-edge analytics that will help JPIAMR generate and share new hypotheses and maximize the potential for developing new antibiotics.

To know more about the SPARK platform please read here.

In 2018 the Joint Programming Process (JPP) turns 10 years. This will be celebrated with a gala dinner in Vienna on the 19^th of September, followed by a one-day conference on the 20^th of September: 10 Years Joint Programming – Achievements and the Way Forward

The conference aims to gather the main stakeholders of the JPIs, to share their experiences in developing and implementing challenge-driven R&I programmes and exchange on possible contributions towards Sustainable Development Goals. JPIAMR will be presenting regarding the JPIAMR-Virtual Research Institute.

For more information and draft agenda, please click here.

Researchers who participated in the JPIAMR workshop on environment in September 2017 have now published a journal article of findings from the workshop. The article, Critical knowledge gaps and research needs related to the environmental dimensions of antibiotic resistance, was published in Environment International.

Read more about the JPIAMR workshop on Environmental Dimensions of AMR here.

JPIAMR recognises a need to reinforce alignment of AMR research; to address this need the JPIAMR will establish a Virtual Research Institute in AMR (“the JPIAMR-VRI”), a Global Network connecting research performing organisations including institutes, centres, and infrastructures to each other across sectorial and geographic boundaries in a larger global network.

The intent of the JPIAMR-VRI Network Call is to help develop a platform that will identify research community needs in AMR and develop ideas to form the foundation of the JPIAMR-VRI. The funded Network Working Groups are expected to generate catalytic ideas and strategic plans to help JPIAMR bring the JPIAMR-VRI to life!

Up to 21 Networks will be funded with up to 50,000 € each to connect experts from research performing organisations, institutes, centres and infrastructures and establish expertise clusters in the AMR community. Note that JPIAMR Network calls do not fund research projects.

More information on the 8th call – JPIAMR-VRI Network Call 2018, can be found at the call webpage: utveckling.jpiamr.eu/8thcall

Download 8th Call folder

We are pleased to announce that Katherine Payne, Professor of Health Economics, The University of Manchester, has been elected as new member of the JPIAMR Scientific Advisory Board.

Professor Katherine Payne was awarded a personal chair in health economics at The University of Manchester in August 2010. Katherine is also a registered pharmacist and was awarded the status of Fellow of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society in 2016. She is now based within the Manchester Centre for Health Economics at The University of Manchester. She holds honorary positions with: the School of Pharmacy, University of Nottingham; PHG Foundation, Cambridge; Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust; and Nowgen, Manchester. Katherine has an interest in the economics of genomic technologies and services and the application to precision medicine. Katherine has an interest in the use of economic evidence to inform decision-making in practice and was a member of a NICE Technology Appraisal Committee between October 2003 and 2012. Katherine has been a member of national funding review panels for projects on the economics of personalised medicine for Canada, UK, The Netherlands, France and Luxembourg. Katherine also has an established interest in communicating the methods and application of economic evaluation to healthcare professionals, including pharmacists, and members of the public.

The overarching goal of JPIAMR research on Surveillance is to standardise, improve and extend surveillance systems on antibiotic use and on AMR in humans, animals, food, and the larger environment. In the network call that opens today, JPIAMR will support leading scientists and experts in the field of AMR surveillance to establish networks to enhance resource alignment and maximise existing and future efforts to combat AMR.

Surveillance networks are essential to monitor the threat of AMR and guide public health policy. In order to understand antibiotic resistance, we must understand whether resistance genes are highly mobile and whether dominant pathogenic clones spread resistance globally. However, countries have different levels and methods of surveillance and many lack national reporting systems leading to major gaps in AMR surveillance and an urgent need to strengthen collaboration on global AMR surveillance.

In partnership with ten member countries; Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, JPIAMR is launching the seventh joint call for transnational networks. The total budget of the call is approximately € 1.1 million.

Applicants are invited to form JPIAMR networks that are expected to provide white papers, prospective views, guidelines and/or best practice/roadmap/systematic reviews and frameworks to identify key questions to be addressed or identify potential solutions to overcome barriers for AMR surveillance and the implementation of surveillance research studies.

In this network call up to 21 networks will be funded with up to € 50 000 each to maximise existing and future efforts to combat AMR by pushing forward new ideas in AMR surveillance. Note that JPIAMR networks calls do not fund research projects.

More information on the 7th call – 2018 Network Call on Surveillance, can be found at the call webpage: utveckling.jpiamr.eu/7thcall/

Download the 7th call folder.