Monday, October 6: Readings and Questions

Monday, October 6: Readings and Questions

On Monday, October 6, Dr. Bonnie Bassler will be joining us for a class discussion. Her area of research is in quorum sensing – the ability of bacteria to communicate amongst themselves, with other species and even with other Kingdoms. It turns out that many, if not most, microbes use quorum sensing as part of their signal to initiate a variety of cellular processes, including those related to virulence and resistance. Thus, interfering with those signals may be an extremely important new source of antimicrobial drugs. Since Dr. Bassler will be discussing that in detail on Monday night, we will focus on other related areas.

For Monday’s class, please read the following articles, that can be found in the Blackboard Contents Section:

1)  “Reviving the Pipeline of Life-Saving Antibiotics: Exploring Solutions to Spur Innovation”

2)  “Platforms for Antibiotic Discovery”

You can find more information about antibiotic resistance and current efforts to develop new antibiotics at the following websites:

CDC Detect and Protect: Information about antibiotic resistance

http://www.cdc.gov/drugresistance/detect-and-protect/

Information about the ADAPT legislation

http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/q-and-a/2014/01/29/adapt-a-regulatory-pathway-to-develop-antibiotics-and-fight-drug-resistant-infections

Information about the GAIN legislation

http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/issue-briefs/2013/11/07/gain-how-a-new-law-is-stimulating-the-development-of-antibiotics

Then, answer the following questions:

1. Based on this information, which antibiotics do you think we need the most?

·  If you could develop just one antibiotic, what would it be? Why?

2. What challenges face the effectiveness of current antibiotics? Consider:

·  Characteristics of pathogens

·  Human behavior

·  Medical practices

·  Other?

3. What unique barriers face the development of new antibiotics? Consider:

·  Characteristics of pathogens

·  Finding new targets/classes of antimicrobials

·  Motivating the pharmaceutical industry

·  FDA rules and regulations/ethical considerations

·  Our priorities

·  Other?

4. What are the ADAPT and GAIN legislative initiatives? Do they go far enough? Too far?

5. Now shift your attention to global issues. In addition to the challenges we already discussed, which of course exist everywhere, what other challenges exist worldwide that complicate our attempts to treat illness, prevent antibiotic resistance and develop new antimicrobial therapies?

6. Finally, what is our responsibility, as members of the scientific community, to address these issues. In other words what can/should we do? What (since we can’t do everything) is someone else’s job?

Your complete written answers to these questions will be due at the end of class on Monday. Your grade for that class will be determined by both your written answers and your class participation. Each person in the class will be expected to participate at least once.