Contagion&reg to Report on ID Week 2018 in San Francisco, CA

The Contagion^® staff is returning to ID Week this year—in San Francisco California—to provide exclusive written and video coverage on the biggest conference dedicated specifically to infectious diseases.

Each year, ID Week serves as a forum for health care professionals of all different backgrounds and institutions to work together and learn from each other’s research, insights, and expertise on several important infectious disease topics.

Last year, Contagion^® spoke with several key opinion leaders in the realm of infectious disease on a plethora of disease topics, including first-line empiric therapy for candidemia, the advantages of using a beta-lactamase inhibitor, and how infectious disease pharmacists can advocate for judicious antibiotic use in patients.

This year’s plenary sessions include several notable speakers. The opening plenary—Reaching for the Stars, Improving Science on Earth: Microbiome Research in Space—will include Kathleen Rubins, PhD, a NASA astronaut who became the first person to sequence DNA in space. The session will discuss research in space and potential consequences for disease transmission between earth and space.

The closing plenary—From Science Fiction to Clinical Trial: The Use of Phage to Treat Antibiotic Resistant Infections—will feature a presentation by Robert T. Schooley, MD, FIDSA, who will be joined with Steffanie Strathdee, PhD, Thomas Patterson, PhD, and Vincent A. Fischetti, PhD. The presenters will discuss the use of monoclonal antibodies to treat or protect against infectious diseases and the role of bacteriophages for the treatment of bacterial infections and how phage lysins act as therapeutic agents against antibiotic resistant bacteria and their effectiveness.

At this year’s conference, we have identified several “hot button” sessions that we will provide coverage on in the upcoming weeks. One big topic that hits close to home in San Francisco is invasive group A Streptococcus infections. Tara Scheuwer, MPH, will be speaking on how rates of invasive group A Streptococcus (iGAS) in the United States have risen since 2014 among homeless populations. The presentation will describe trends of iGAS among different populations in San Francisco.

Other important topics include: fungal pathogens and antifungal resistance, the effectiveness of new influenza vaccine candidates, the use of experimental vaccines to quell the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, clinical trial results for novel HIV treatments, and advances in transplants in the ID sphere.

In addition, Contagion^® will be interviewing several presenters to discuss several new antibiotics in the pipeline. Some of these antibiotics include, but are not limited to:

• Cefiderocol: Cefiderocol is a cephalosporin with a novel mechanism that penetrates the outer cell membrane of Gram-negative pathogens, including multidrug-resistant strains including Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Enterobacteriaceae, carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii.
• Lefamulin: Lefamulin is a semi-synthetic compound that works to inhibit the synthesis of the protein that enables bacteria to grow. The compound binds to the peptidyl transferase center and interferes with the protein productions and results in a halt of bacterial growth. being evaluated for the treatment of adults with community acquired bacterial pneumonia.
• Iclaprim: Iclaprim is a novel investigational antibiotic with strong in vitro activity against Gram-positive isolates in various types of staphylococci including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. The investigational antibiotic is being developed to treat acute bacterial skin and skin structure infections.

If there are any specific presentations from the “Program” that you would like us to cover, please share your thoughts on our Twitter or Facebook pages and we will do our best to accommodate your requests.

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