The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is awarding more than $9 million to 25 investigators to pilot innovative solutions and explore knowledge gaps about antibiotic resistance related to the human microbiome, healthcare settings, and surface water and soil. Antibiotic resistant infections can be deadly for humans and is a growing global threat jeopardizing modern medicine and the healthcare, veterinary, and agriculture industries.
To protect people, CDC and investigators will:
- Discover and evaluate new strategies that protect patients from resistance threats in healthcare settings and improve healthcare quality.
- Investigate the human microbiome and pinpoint effective prevention strategies that protect people, their microbiomes, and the effectiveness of antibiotics. The microbiome is the community of germs in and on a person, such as in the gut.
- Examine the impact of antibiotic resistance elements in environmental settings, like surface water and soil, to determine potential downstream impacts on human health. Resistance elements are genetic material that can move between, combine with bacteria, and contribute to antibiotic resistance. Examine the impact of antibiotic resistance elements in environmental settings, like surface water and soil, to determine potential downstream impacts on human health. Resistance elements are genetic material that can move between, combine with bacteria, and contribute to antibiotic resistance.
Germs continue to find new ways to resist drugs. Data from this work will help CDC protect people (e.g., detecting reservoirs of resistant germs, informing outbreak response, and preventing future infections).
These awards are part of the Antibiotic Resistance Solutions Initiative and are intended to grow the agency’s innovative approaches to combat antibiotic resistance. In fiscal years 2016 and 2017, CDC’s Antibiotic Resistance Solutions Initiative awarded more than $24 million to investigators through a broad agency announcement to fight antibiotic resistance.
Today’s innovation awardees include:
- Baylor College of Medicine
- Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute (CHORI) at the University of California San Francisco
- Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
- Cleveland VA Medical Research and Education Foundation
- Department of Research & Evaluation, Kaiser Permanente Southern California
- Emory University
- Georgia Tech Applied Research Corporation (GTARC) (2 projects)
- Health Services Advisory Group, Inc.
- Infectious Diseases Society of America
- J. Craig Venter Institute
- Medical Research Analytics & Informatics Alliance
- OpGen, Inc.
- Regents of the University of Michigan
- Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
- The Ohio State University
- The Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia
- The University of Georgia
- Translational Genomics Research Institute
- University of Alabama at Birmingham
- University of Arizona
- University of Georgia Research Foundation, Inc.
- University of Maryland, Baltimore
- University of Mississippi Medical Center
- Washington University
For descriptions of the new projects: www.cdc.gov/drugresistance/solutions-initiative/innovations-to-slow-AR.
For more information about antibiotic resistance: http://www.cdc.gov/DrugResistance.
