Experimental Approaches for Treatment of Infectious Disease

CHARM Symposium at Experimental Biology 2021: Tuesday April 27th, 2021 2:00-3:30PM EST 

The COVID-19 pandemic highlights the need for development of novel anti-infective agents. Although academic researchers and the biopharmaceutical industry have quickly responded to develop candidate therapies to address COVID-19, an even larger infectious disease challenge remains largely unaddressed: antibiotic resistance. Each year in the US, 2.8 million people are infected with antibiotic-resistant pathogens; 35,000 die as a result of such infections. The 2014 UK Government Review on Antimicrobial Resistance concluded that, without a dramatic change in our response, antimicrobial resistance will result in 300 million premature deaths and up to $10 trillion in loss to the global economy by 2050, exceeding cancer as a cause of human mortality. Particularly at risk are patients already more vulnerable to illness from viral lung infections such as COVID-19; in fact, the CDC estimates that 29%-55% of the deaths recorded during the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic were caused by secondary bacterial pneumonia. Many major pharmaceutical companies have abandoned antibiotic R&D after judging it to be unprofitable, creating an innovation gap. Furthermore, because of frequent use of antibiotics for self-resolving issues, physician reliance on unnecessarily broad-spectrum regimes, widespread use of antibiotics in agricultural feed for growth promotion, and pure Darwinian evolution of bacteria, we face a dilemma where new anti-infective approaches are needed. This symposium highlights translational research efforts aimed at resolving this unmet medical need.