Keynotes announced for ECCMID 2016

The European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID) previews some of the keynote lectures at the 26th European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID). The globe’s most prominent infection specialists will be gathering at its annual congress in Amsterdam from 9 – 12 April 2016.

One of the highlights will be the keynote lecture by Prof. Robert A. Bonomo from the Cleveland VA Medical Center and Case Western University School of Medicine, the recipient of this year’s prestigious ESCMID Excellence Award. He will talk about his work on Gram-negative beta-lactamases, which has been instrumental for the development of new therapies.Prof. Bonomo will elaborate on second and third-generation treatments such as avibactam and relebactam, which are effective against pathogens, while older compounds such as amoxicillin are no longer viable against certain Gram-negative bacteria.

Antimicrobial strategies will once again be a major topic at this year’s ECCMID. Prof. Roy Kishony from the Israel Institute of Technology will outline how evolutionary biology could provide new insights. He has proposed, for instance, to alternate between different antibiotics so that bacteria are less likely to develop resistance. Meanwhile, Prof. Lance B. Price of George Washington University will examine how antibiotic use in animal food production contributes to antimicrobial resistance.

Current and emerging tuberculosis drugs will be evaluated in a keynote lecture by Prof.Stewart Cole from the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne – he achieved international recognition for his leadership of the project to sequence the genome of the bacterium responsible for tuberculosis. At the congress, his session will examine gene-sequencing data and discuss how genomics can help improve the next generation of treatments.

The effects that the fungal microbiome, or mycobiome, has on human health will be presented by Prof. Mahmoud A. Ghannoum of the University Hospitals of Cleveland and Case Western Reserve University. During his session he will make a proposal to conduct an all-inclusive characterization of the human microbiome to better understand the role it plays in human health. Similarly, Dr. Vincent B. Young from the University of Michigan will scrutinize the role of microbiota in transplantations.

An entirely different perspective is provided by Hala Audi, who leads the team conducting Jim O’Neill’s independent Review on Antimicrobial Resistance commissioned by the UK Government. She will be presenting an overview of nearly two years of international work by the Review which will publish its final recommendations this Summer. The O’Neill group have called for establishing a new, global mechanism to reimburse the development of new antibiotics that meet specified unmet medical needs. Such a new system would offer lump sum payments – some of US $1bn or more – for breakthrough new antibiotics, linked to their ‘value’ in combating antimicrobial resistance. This approach would help ‘de-link’ a new product’s profitability from its sales volumes, while ensuring global access to new antibiotics and providing greater certainty about the commercial viability of products. It also complements conservation goals by eliminating the imperative for a drug company to sell new antibiotics in large quantities

Prof. Winfried V. Kern, ECCMID Programme Director, commented:

We have invited some renowned presenters for this year’s keynote sessions. I hope that the discussions, recommendations, and advice given at our congress will contribute to answering some of the most pressing questions in infectious diseases and clinical microbiology.”

Full keynotes list:

• Antimicrobial resistance: an economics perspective, Hala Audi, London, United Kingdom
• Vancomycin resistance in Staphylococcus aureus: nothing is what it seems to be, Benjamin P. Howden, Melbourne, Australia
• Microbiota transplantation, Vincent B. Young, Ann Arbor, MI, United States
• New drugs for tuberculosis: from genome to patient, Stewart Cole, Lausanne, Switzerland
• How antibiotics for non-human use affect public health, Lance B. Price, Washington, DC, United States
• The fungal microbiome and human health, Mahmoud A. Ghannoum, Cleveland, OH, United States
• Systems vaccinology, Bali Pulendran, Atlanta, GA, United States
• Translating evolutionary biology findings into antibiotic stewardship strategies, Roy Kishony, Haifa, Israel
• Neglected parasitic diseases: overview and update, David Molyneux, Liverpool, United Kingdom
• The renaissance of the beta-lactamase inhibitors - Robert A. Bonomo,Cleveland VA Medical Center and Case Western University School of Medicine