Category: News and press

CORBEL – Coordinated Research Infrastructures Building Enduring Life-science services – is an EC Horizon2020 project uniting 11 Biological and Medical Science Research Infrastructures (RIs). In CORBEL, the participating RIs expand their cooperation in order to harmonise researchers’ access to their cutting-edge technologies and services by establishing a sustainable platform of aligned services that will enable faster admission to and a wider portfolio of technologies and services to boost research projects.

The CORBEL Open Call invites researchers to apply to access technologies and services from more than 15 facilities from eight different research infrastructures across Europe. Selected projects will be allocated to so-called Access Tracks and gain unprecedented opportunities to utilise a wide range of high-end technologies and services. These include state-of-the-art offers from the fields of advanced imaging, biobanking, curated databases, marine model organisms, mouse mutant phenotyping, screening and medicinal chemistry, structural biology as well as systems biology.

Projects will be supported at every stage, with CORBEL project managers on hand to help scientists navigate between different service providers and exploit the full potential of the offers available.

Learn more about the CORBEL Open Call by visiting our website http://www.corbel-project.eu/1st-open-call.html

 

 

On the 21^st of September, the UN General Assembly convened to discuss on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) for the first time. Representatives from 193 countries signed a declaration to “Act on AMR”, which signals a strong commitment to curb the global overuse of medicines to treat disease.

Since 2010, the Joint Programming Initiative on antimicrobial resistance, JPIAMR, has coordinated research funding in the field of antimicrobial resistance, in order to allow greater impact and avoid duplication of research. Today, JPIAMR includes more than twenty actively participating countries. While initially only Europe-based, JPIAMR has recently expanded globally to Argentina, Israel and Canada.

“We are very pleased that awareness of antimicrobial resistance has now been lifted to the global level. International cooperation is essential in this matter. JPIAMR will be engaging with more countries outside Europe, making it an ideal platform for global coordination of AMR research”, says Chairman of JPIAMR, Carlos Segovia.

Much of the content in the UN Declaration is consistent with the work already done by JPIAMR. Carlos Segovia is happy about this, but wants to see well-defined priorities:

“Several points of the declaration touch on aspects that our initiatives have already succeeded in achieving – including creating and implement national plans. We wish, however, for an even stronger focus on how the different countries should coordinate their research funding in prioritized areas.”

Through JPIAMR’s funding initiatives, more than 50M EUR has been distributed for research on new antimicrobials and therapies as well as on transmission mechanisms of antimicrobial resistance. The program also finances ten networks that address various policy issues regarding antimicrobial resistance including diagnostics or interventions.

Next year, the efforts will be intensified with additional grants for research on combating antimicrobial resistance. In January, JPIAMR is going to launch a new call for proposals on AMR Interventions with a budget of over 10M EUR.

 

JPIAMR Workshop “The interplay between AMR Surveillance and Science”

Oslo, Norway October 12-13. 2016

Surveillance is a key component of any strategy to counteract the spread and consequences of antimicrobial resistance (AMR).  Present surveillance systems have severe limitations  and the purpose of the workshop is to explore how surveillance systems can be developed to support scientific research, and how science can fill knowledge gaps to optimize surveillance. 

The workshop will be hosted by the Norwegian Research Council as a lunch-to-lunch meeting for invited participants on October 12-13 in Oslo, Norway. The discussion will revolve around selected keynote lectures, breakout sessions and plenary discussions.

Program

October 12 2016       

Lunch

• Welcome and scope of the workshop
• Gunnar Skov Simonsen (University of Tromsø, Norway)
• “The use of AMR surveillance data in scientific research – Opportunities and limitations”

Liselotte Diaz Högberg (European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, Sweden)

• “The global transition from phenotypic to genotypic AMR surveillance – How do we get there? “

Neil Woodford (Public Health England, UK)

• Breakout session in two groups to identify knowledge gaps in AMR surveillance and suggest funding calls for scientific research to amend these
  • AMR surveillance for patient management

Hajo Grundmann (Universitätsklinikum Freiburg, Germany)

• AMR surveillance in non-human reservoirs
• Bruno Gonzalez-Zorn (Complutense University, Spain)

October 13 2016

Breakfast

• “Novel technologies and strategies for surveillance”
• David Aanensen (Imperial College, UK)
• Reports from breakout sessions
  • “The interplay between surveillance and science to optimize patient management”

Hajo Grundmann (Universitätsklinikum Freiburg, Germany)

• “The interplay between surveillance and science to contain non-human AMR reservoirs”

Bruno Gonzalez-Zorn (Complutense University, Spain)

• Plenary discussion on future JPI-AMR funding call for AMR surveillance.
• Martin Steinbakk (Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Norway)

 

We are pleased to report that the Microbiology Society has honored  Laura Piddock the Vice-chair of the Scientific Advisory Board for JPIAMR  with the 2016 Outreach Prize. The Prize is awarded to a microbiologist who has engaged in high-quality outreach activities during the last 2–5 years. As the Vice-chair of the Scientific Advisory Board, Laura uses her extensive expertise in the AMR field to make sure JPIAMR’s scientific focus follows the identified strategic route. She is Professor of Microbiology at the University of Birmingham where she runs the Antimicrobials Research Group. Her current research focuses on understanding mechanisms of antibiotic resistance as a basis for drug discovery.

Read more on the 2016 Outreach prize

Read more on Laura Piddock’s research here

 

 

G-20 Leaders and AMR 

JPIAMR is willing to play a key role in this week G-20 Leaders Summit Communique on unlocking R&D of new and existing antimicrobials: 

“Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) poses a serious threat to public health, growth and global economic stability. We affirm the need to explore in an inclusive manner to fight antimicrobial resistance by developing evidence-based ways to prevent and mitigate resistance, and unlock research and development into new and existing antimicrobials from a G20 value-added perspective, and call on the WHO, FAO, OIE and OECD to collectively report back in 2017 on options to address this including the economic aspects. In this context, we will promote prudent use of antibiotics and take into consideration huge challenges of affordability and access of antimicrobials and their impact on public health. We strongly support the work of the WHO, FAO and the OIE and look forward to a successful high-level meeting on AMR during the UN General Assembly. We look forward to the discussion under the upcoming presidency for dealing with these issues.”

 For more information please read here

 

On June16, the European Commission published a Special Eurobarometer survey, showing a decrease of 6% in the consumption of antibiotics but at the same time a persistent lack of awareness on their effects. A majority of Europeans (57%) are unaware that antibiotics are ineffective against viruses. The Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, Vytenis Andriukaitis states that this shows that there is an issue of awareness.

“The EU should continue its global involvement in fighting AMR. // I look forward to seeing all Member States have an Action Plan on AMR in place by next year. I am confident this will help to tackle the issue. We really need action on this urgently!”, said Andriukaitis.

Read the press release here

 

Download the Eurobarometer Summary

In this official statement the Minister of Health of the EU acknowledges the work of JPIAMR and calls all the Member States to “join or strengthen their commitment to the existing Joint Programming Initiative on AMR”

Download the document here

To fight growing antimicrobial resistance, the use of existing antimicrobial drugs should be restricted, and there should be incentives for new ones should be developed
In a vote on draft plans to update EU law on veterinary medicines, MEPs have backed a ban on collective and preventive antibiotic treatment of animals and called for measures to stimulate research into new medicines.
Veterinary medicines must not under any circumstances be used to improve performance or compensate for poor animal husbandry, say MEPs. Using antibiotics as a preventive measure, in the absence of clinical signs of infection should be limited to single animals and only when fully justified by a veterinarian.
To help tackle antimicrobial resistance, the revised law would empower the European Commission to designate certain antimicrobials for human use only.
To encourage research into new antimicrobials, MEPs want to see incentives, including longer periods of market exclusivity.

Today, the Commission announces a new EU Health Award, which will be awarded to non-governmental bodies (NGOs) that distinguished themselves for their efforts and achievements towards reducing the threat to human health from Antimicrobial Resistance.

Antimicrobial resistance is a ticking time bomb presenting a threat as big as climate change. It is a priority for me to take action to avert it both at the EU level and globally, with the help and commitment of NGOs.

The European Commission calls upon international, European, national and regional NGOs active in the field of AMR to submit their initiatives to the EU Health Award 2016. The call for applications focuses on reducing the threat to human health in fields such as:

• Prevention of infection
• Appropriate use of antimicrobials
• Surveillance
• Tackling AMR from a specific disease perspective (e.g. Tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS…).
• Other initiatives that can reduce the threat to human health from AMR.

The deadline for submitting applications is 31 July 2016, 23.59 CET/Brussels Time. Prizes for the winners are as follows:

• 1st prize: 20 000 €
• 2nd prize: 15 000 €
• 3rd prize: 10 000 €

All shortlisted candidates will be invited to an Award Ceremony in the presence of the Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, Vytenis Andriukaitis. The winners will be invited to join the EU Health Policy Platform and contribute to the discussions.

More details on the Award including eligibility and selection criteria, information on the jury, the prizes, the award ceremony and the EU Health Policy Platform can be found here