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Learn antimicrobial susceptibility testing techniques and how whole-genome sequencing and bioinformatics can be used to understand AMR
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a global public health emergency and threatens the safe delivery of modern medical care. A recent study estimated that there were 4.95 million deaths associated with AMR bacterial infections in 2019. Global projections of the negative impact of AMR predict the loss of nearly 10 million lives per year, and a cumulative loss of global production up to 100 trillion US dollars by 2050. AMR requires immediate, concerted, international, collaborative action to monitor its prevalence and spread throughout the world.
The importance of this has been recognised both by the United Nations, and by the World Health Organisation; the latter has published a list of priority pathogens and a global strategy for AMR surveillance.
In collaboration with the Faculty of Tropical Medicine (FTM) and the Mahidol-Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit (MORU), Mahidol University, Thailand, we are pleased to announce the 2025 Global Training course in Antimicrobial Resistance of Bacterial Pathogens. This course aims to address regionally specific AMR-associated challenges through knowledge transfer and skills development by global experts.
This week-long course will include an introduction to AMR with hands-on laboratory practicals for AMR detection through molecular and phenotypic testing. This will be accompanied by theoretical training on the evolution and spread of AMR and utilisation of whole-genome sequencing and bioinformatics analysis in methods for AMR surveillance and control. Additionally, participants will have the opportunity to network and potentially build a regional AMR network to support longer-term partnerships and collaborations.
This course is open to applicants based in Asia only, who are actively engaged in, or soon to commence related research or work. This may include diagnostic stewardship, antimicrobial stewardship, infection prevention and control, or generate policies related to AMR in bacteria. Applicants should be PhD students, clinical trainees, or specialists in medical microbiology or bioinformatics, postdoctoral scientists, senior technicians, or research assistants with a Master’s degree.
After completing this course, you will be able to:
- Carry out standard laboratory methods for antimicrobial susceptibility testing (e.g. disk testing and MIC determination)
- Describe the principles and practice of quality assurance and control in AMR surveillance techniques, antimicrobial susceptibility testing and reporting.
- Discuss the range of control strategies for AMR in human and veterinary medicine (e.g. antimicrobial stewardship, infection control and policies).
- Use appropriate software tools to analyse WGS data for assembly of bacterial genomes, detect resistant variants and conduct phylogenetic analysis.
- Analyse and interpret genomics data for AMR surveillance.
The course will consist of a series of lectures and hands-on laboratory and computational practicals. Participants will learn standard international methods for the detection of antimicrobial resistance in bacteria. They will also complete computational practicals covering the investigation, tracking and understanding AMR in bacteria.
Topics will include:
- Epidemiology of AMR pathogens and national surveillance programmes
- Clinical importance of AMR
- Causes and biological mechanisms of resistance in Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria
- Antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) methods e.g. disc testing, automated systems, minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC), breakpoints and reporting, QC/QA
- Antibiotic policies and stewardship
- Tackling AMR using a One Health Approach
- Whole genome sequencing (WGS)
- Web-based and command line tools for pathogen genomics analysis
- Genomic surveillance of AMR
Course Organisers
- Beth Blane, University of Cambridge, UK
- Ewan Harrison, Wellcome Sanger Institute, UK
- Direk Limmathurotsakul, Mahidol-Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit
Course Instructors
- Pakorn Aiewsakun, Mahidol University
- Premjit Amornchai, Mahidol-Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit
- Elizabeth Batty, Oxford Global Health, University of Oxford
- Francesc Coll I Cerezo, Instituto de Biomedicina de Valencia
- Arun Decano, University of Oxford
- Fahad Khokhar, University of Cambridge
- Janjira Thaipadungpanit, Mahidol-Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit
- Polly Yap, Monash University
Wellcome Connecting Science Team
- Martin Aslett, Informatics Manager
- Vaishnavi Vikas Gangadhar, Informatics Technical Officer
- Cassandra Soo, Laboratory Courses Manager
- Aaron Dean, Laboratory Technical Officer
- Christopher Adamson, Laboratory Operations Officer
- Isabela Malta, Assistant Overseas Courses Manager
- Amy Pass, Events Manager
The course data are free to reuse and adapt with appropriate attribution. All course data in these repositories are licensed under the Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).
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