Call: AMR Networks/Working groups

4th call, 2016

Veterinary Committee on Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing (VetCAST)

Network partners
Project resources
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Call

The current quality standards for antimicrobial susceptibility testing of veterinary pathogens are far from being optimal or complete, making the predictive value of susceptibility data in veterinary diagnostics questionable.

Completed project

The absence of sufficient animal species-specific breakpoints affects the possibility for veterinary practitioners to prescribe antibiotics rationally, because there is no basis for determining whether a bacterial strain is clinically resistant or not. The development of animal-specific breakpoints helps in preventing misuse of antibiotics in animals.

The objectives of VetCAST are:

  • To define science based clinical MIC-breakpoints (CBPs) in order to harmonise the results of antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) of veterinary pathogens in Europe
  • To provide a joint European forum for veterinary microbiologists, pharmacologists and clinicians working in research, public health and animal healthcare, including both public and private organizations to promote the importance of harmonized veterinary AST

Network partners

  • Dik Mevius, Wageningen University & Research, Netherlands (Coordinator)

This network includes 51 partners, please click on the following link to see complete network composition: Network composition Veterinary Committee on Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing (VetCAST)

Project resources

Veterinary Committee on Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing (VetCAST)

Publications

Call

Histidine Kinase Inhibitors as Novel Anti-infectives

Network partners
Call

The growing problem of antibiotic resistance and the lack of newly discovered antibiotics poses a major threat to human and animal health. We have previously identified a panel of inhibitors targeting bacterial histidine kinases in bacteria that block expression of activities required to cause disease and cope with environmental stresses.

Completed project

Inhibiting the processes in disease-causing bacteria offers some clear advantages, as the drugs would disarm the pathogen, enabling the host innate immune system to eradicate them from the body. As only infectious bacteria will be affected the community of beneficial bacteria which compete with pathogens in the intestine, upper respiratory tract and urogenital tract and should be relatively unaffected.

This Transnational Network will meet to aligning research activities and devise a strategy to develop new anti-infective drugs targeted to histidine kinases in multidrug resistant pathogens.

Network partners

  • Jerry Wells, Wageningen University & Research, Netherlands (Coordinator)

This network includes 4 partners, please click on the following link to see complete network composition: Network composition Histidine Kinase Inhibitors as Novel Anti-infectives

Call

Behavioural approaches to optimise antibiotic stewardship in hospitals

Network partners
Popular summary
Project resources
Publications
Call

Antibiotic stewardship is seen as a key strategy to prevent antibiotic resistance and reduce healthcare associated infections. Our group has recently completed the most comprehensive systematic review to date of 221 intervention studies to improve hospital antibiotic prescribing.

Completed project

The results are clear – we have robust evidence to show that a variety of interventions are effective in reducing unnecessary treatment safely, without increase in mortality. However there are likely further opportunities to enhance the effects of such programs. There is a substantial theoretical and empirical framework in behavioural sciences about how to change behaviour, yet the extent to which current antibiotic stewardship programs have adopted a behavioural approach is uncertain. There is an urgent need to bring together key stakeholders in the delivery of stewardship programmes and research experts in improvement sciences to develop more impactful stewardship programmes.

This working group comprising world experts in antibiotic stewardship from UK, Canada, Norway, and Germany in partnership with experts in implementation science and behaviour change interventions aims to address the following:
1. What behaviour change approaches can be recommended now to optimise hospital stewardship programmes?
2. How can hospital stewardship programmes be designed to optimise implementation across countries?
3. What is the research agenda to optimise efficient implementation of hospital antibiotic stewardship programmes worldwide?

Network partners

  • Craig R Ramsay, University of Aberdeen, United Kingdom (Coordinator)

This network includes 11 partners, please click on the following link to see complete network composition: Network composition Behavioural approaches to optimise antibiotic stewardship in hospitals

Antibiotics are used to treat infections, such as pneumonia, that are caused by bacteria. Over time, however, many bacteria have become resistant to antibiotics. Antibiotic resistance is a serious problem for individual patients and healthcare systems; in hospitals, infections caused by antibiotic‐resistant bacteria are associated with higher rates of death, illness and prolonged hospital stay. Bacteria often become resistant because antibiotics are used too often and incorrectly.

Antibiotic stewardship is seen as a key strategy to prevent antibiotic resistance. This Joint Programming Initiative for Antimicrobial Resistance funded international working group comprised world experts in antibiotic stewardship from UK, Canada, Norway, and Germany in partnership with experts in implementation science and behaviour change interventions. The working group identified and agreed research priorities for future research efforts to optimise behavioural approaches to the implementation of antibiotic stewardship in hospitals worldwide.

The research priorities were grouped into three areas:
1) establishing the evidence base and understanding current practice;
2) design and evaluation of stewardship programmes and
3) crosscutting areas such as what matters to patients in stewardship programmes.

Project resources

Coordinator Miguel Camara’s website

Publications

Call

AMR Networks/Working groups

Information & application
Related material
Funders
Supported projects

The call AMR Networks/Working groups sets out to assemble motivated groups of leading experts and establish Working Groups in order to enhance resource alignment and maximise existing and future efforts to combat AMR by pushing forward the conceptualisation of ideas.

The Working Groups will for example produce white papers, prospective views, guidelines, and/or best practice frameworks to identify key questions to be address or identify potential solutions to overcome barriers to antimicrobial resistance research studies.

Based on the priority topics identified in the JPIAMR Strategic Research Agenda, applicants are invited to tackle one or more of the suggested focal areas. Examples of questions within the areas are provided as a guide; however, those examples are neither mandatory nor limiting. Working Groups should be built with emphasise on what is needed at a National and International level to address AMR.

Suggested focal areas

  • Guidelines on use (Human & Veterinary) – Affordable stewardship
  • Surveillance in primary care
  • New anti-infective/ New adjuvant therapies / Alternative approaches
  • Evaluation of risk for generation of resistance in human setting
  • Rapid diagnostic tests
  • Role of environmental factors
  • Infrastructures/Biobanks available relevant to infection and AMR

Information & application

This call is closed.

Call text AMR Networks/Working Groups 2016 (pdf 0,6 MB)

A final workshop, Maximising Existing and Future Research Efforts and Resource Alignment to Combat AMR, was organised in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, in March 2018. The full workshop report can be downloaded here: Workshop report: Maximising Existing and Future Research Efforts and Resource Alignment to Combat AMR (pdf 1,2 MB)

Filmed interviews with coordinators of some of the funded JPIAMR Networks can be found here: Results from the 4th JPIAMR Joint Call “AMR Networks/Working Groups”: Interviews with network coordinators March 2018

Funders

Belgium
The Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO)

Canada
Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR)

France
French National Research Agency (ANR)

Germany
The Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)

The Netherlands
The Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development (ZonMw)

Norway
The Research Council of Norway (RCN)

Spain
Instituto de Salud Carlos III

Sweden
Swedish Research Council (SRC)

United Kingdom
Medical Research Council (MRC)

Supported projects

Thirteen networks with approximately 160 partners were funded within the 4th JPIAMR Joint Call “AMR Networks/Working Groups”. Each funded network received approximately €50,000 to work on the development of different AMR policy recommendations and research strategies. Click on the network titles in the list below to learn more on each network.