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"New Treatment Options against Carbapenem-Resistant Acinetobacter baumannii Infections" cites our preclinical studies on apramycin

1/28/2019

9 Comments

 
"New Treatment Options against Carbapenem-Resistant Acinetobacter baumannii Infections" cites our murine apramycin PK/PD studies and activity spectrum studies against "CRAB.".   
Picture
From Table 2. New Therapeutic Options for Carbapenem-Resistant Acinetobacter baumannii
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Pondering the oddities of companies bringing new antibiotics to market.  Part I.

12/12/2018

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New antibiotics that may offer additional and much needed treatment options will only be used in hospital systems if the clinical microbiology laboratory can provide timely antimicrobial susceptibility testing data. Historically there has been a time lag in the availability of susceptibility testing methods either at reference laboratories (long delay to results), incorporation in automated commercial systems (4 years), or simpler methods like disk diffusion and gradient strips that can be performed manually on an as needed basis.  I was excited to learn that delafloxacin and meropenem/vaborbactam disk diffusion and gradient strip methods finally became available. Fantastic. However, before we can introduce those methods in the clinical laboratory, we need to validate performance of these methods per CLIA '88 regulations and good laboratory practice.  This requires either comparing the new methods to a reference standard (broth microdilution -- need antibiotic powder, and a lot of set up time) or a set of strains that has been previously characterized by a reference dilution method and has a good representation of susceptible and resistant isolates.  Those are serious roadblocks.  By chance, I happened to give a talk at the Northeast Branch of the American Society of Microbiology and a someone from Melinta Pharmaceuticals happened to be there, and that someone referred me to our local Key Account Manager who offerred a solution "on request". Specifically, Melinta or other pharmaceutical companies are not allowed to approach me and tell me about a solution, but if I inquire independently and ask for a previously characterized set of bacterial isolates, they are allowed to tell me that in fact they have a series of previously characterized isolates for both drugs available for validation. These isolates are provided free of charge from Laboratory Specialist, Inc, Sent by FEDEX with first class documentation, data for broth microdilution performed circa ten times on each isolates with modal MICs and MIC distribution - wow, that is awesome. Methods validated beautifully. It just seems odd to me that such a valuable resource, providing clinical laboratories the ability to robustly evaluate AST methods for newly marketed drugs, needs to remain on a need to know basis. Clinical labs, please take note of this available resource. The same proved to be true for plazomicin.  Achaogen uses the same Laboratory Specialists, Inc. to provide 30 characterized isolates on request; however, the FEDEX chargers are not absorbed. The FDA-CDC Biobank also now has a set of isolates characterized for plazomicin susceptibility and I see now also delafloxacin., I suspect the exact same set of organisms. The existing rule restricting such company-clinical laboratory communication about these important resources should be relaxed! We need facile access to validation strains sets to bring new testing into our laboratories in a timely fashion, to facilitate the availability of new antibiotics when they are most needed, and to help support profitability of antibiotic development by pharmaceutical companies.      
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Apramycin demonstrates efficacy against Acinetobacter baumannii murine tissue infection

1/18/2018

1 Comment

 
Congratulations to lab members, Anthony Kang, and colleagues for our manuscript newly accepted in Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy titled: "​Efficacy of Apramycin against Multidrug-Resistant Acinetobacter baumannii in the Murine Neutropenic Thigh Model"

The manuscripts describes potent in vitro and in vivo activity of the apramycin, an aminocyclitol aminoglycoside, against multidrug-resistant and extensively-drug resistant Acinetobacter baumannii.  

In prior manuscripts, we demonstrated broad activity against several types of multidrug-resistant pathogens including carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE), Acinetobacter  baumannii and Pseudomonas aeruginosa
1 Comment

Anthony Kang, KP Smith, and I presented posters at the 2017 ASM/ESCMID Conference

9/30/2017

1 Comment

 
on Drug Development to Meet the Challenge of Antimicrobial Resistance, September 6-8, 2017. Posters were on apramycin, inkjet printer-based susceptibility testing methodology, and MAST rapid susceptibility technology, respectively.     
1 Comment

Congratulations to Anthony Kang, PhD, and colleagues on our publication: "In Vitro Apramycin Activity Against Multidrug-Resistant Acinetobacter baumannii and Pseudomonas aeruginosa" published online today in Diagnostic Microbiology and Infectious Disease

3/17/2017

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The manuscript highlights the remarkable activity of apramycin against multidrug-resistant, extensively drug resistant and pandrug-resistant Acinetobacter and Pseudomonas.   Both organisms are significant multidrug-resistance threats. Importantly, frank resistance to apramycin was observed in < 2% of isolates. Apramycin is an aminocyclitol-based aminoglycoside that is currently approved for veterinary use. The activity in these groups of bacteria was especially notable in light of the high level of resistance of the same strain set to aminoglycosides (amikacin, gentamicin, tobramycin) approved for human use.  This study complements our prior study, also published in DMID, demonstrating activity of apramycin against a high proportion of carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae strains.  
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  • Home
  • Antimicrobials
    • Legionella pneumophila
    • T4SS-dependent Gram negative pathogens
    • CRE Pathogens
    • Mechanisms of carbapenem resistance >
      • Carbapenemases | KPC | NDM-1
      • Porins
      • Efflux pumps
  • Diagnostics
  • SARS-CoV-2
  • Pathogenesis
  • About the PI
  • Personnel
  • Publications
  • Blog
  • Environment
  • Positions
  • Resources
  • Major Equipment
  • Donations
  • Comments
  • Contact Info
  • Internal Lab Resources