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Urgent need to prevent 'the end of the antibiotic era'

November 22nd, 2013 Susan Charles and Xavier Mayes

With increasing pressure on human health from resistant organisms, the UTS ithree institute continues to respond to the urgent problem of antibiotic resistance highlighted during Antibiotic Awareness Week (18-24 November).

Through the institute UTS is rising to the challenge highlighted by Australia's Chief Scientist Professor Ian Chubb, who warned that "antibiotic resistance has the potential to become one of the world's biggest public health challenges, requiring a serious response from our scientists, our industries and the community at large".

The ithree institute is an internationally recognised expert in the understanding and control of infectious diseases in humans and animals, consisting of research groups led by globally-experienced scientists in the fields of microbial and parasitic infectious diseases.

The institute has invested in world-leading imaging facilities, alongside state-of-the-art genomic, bioinformatics and proteomic facilities to help respond to the urgent need to tackle antibiotic resistance, said ithree institute director and UTS Distinguished Professor Ian Charles.

"With the rise of resistant superbugs, we desperately need to find new ways to combat infectious diseases and I am confident that our research at the ithree institute will make a contribution to that urgent quest," Professor Charles said.

"The battle against infectious disease will never be won – bugs have been with us since the early origins of life on the planet and they are very smart at adapting - so the question we should be asking is 'what can we do about superbug resistance to avoid a return to the pre-antibiotic era?'".

Fortunately, Professor Charles sees recent major progress in high-throughput genomics and next generation sequencing as offering a promising route to help with detection, surveillance and - most importantly – the discovery of new and innovative therapeutics for the treatment of infectious disease.

"In this endeavour we are entering an age of 'big data', where bioinformatics will provide the ability to make sense of the wealth of new information we uncover," Professor Charles said.

Provided by University of Technology, Sydney

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