ESCMID Study Group for Non-traditional Antibacterial Therapy – ESGNTA

 

ESGNTA Annual Report

Download the latest Annual Report.

 

News & Activities


2022 Annual Report Published

The Annual Report showcasing the achievements of the previous year is now available to view. Be sure to check out the report to see what the Study Group was able to accomplish in 2022 as well as what they plan for the future.

 

ESGNTA Newsletter September 2022

ESGNTA has released the latest ESGNTA newsletter for September 2022. Inside, you can find out the latest news concerning this Study Group such as educational events, conferences, publications and more. Enjoy!

 

ESGNTA newsletter April 2022

Dear Friends,

First, we would like to congratulate all of you on this month's festivities!

Ramadan Mubarak

Happy Easter

Happy Passover

 

This month the ECCMID conference is going to take place and it will be a great opportunity to meet all of you in the SG meeting (see details below).

This is going to be the 2nd time we are going to convene in person (and in zoom for those not able to attend).

 

In this newsletter, we would like to share with you some of the updates about ESGNTA activities and other related conferences:

 

ESGNTA SG Executive Committee:

Following the elections from March 3 to 17,  a new executive committee was elected for the ESGNTA. The new EC will take office during  ECCMID2022, and the roles of each of the members will be decided then. The new EC that were elected were: Jean-Paul Pirnay, Ran Nir-Paz, Tristan Ferry, Shawna McCallin and Zuzanna Drulis-Kawa. We sure hope that the new EC will take our SG to significant impact within ESCMID, as well as beyond.

We also would like to express our gratitude to our inauguration committee that established this study group and was able to go through all the tedious processes of the creation of a new study group. Mainly, we would like to thank Patrick Soentjens and Joana Azeredo, who although not part of the new EC, we sure hope to see them staying active in the SG!

 

ECCMID Conference

The ECCMID conference will be held in Lisbon, Portugal from April 23-26.

Please mark your schedule in ECCMID  for the following ESGNTA activities:

We will have 2 sessions at this conference:

1.     A  2hr symposium on Saturday 23 April (08:30-10:30) entitled “New insights into phages: Current challenges and future developments” featuring Prof. Saija Kiljunen, Prof. Krystyna Dabrowska, Dr Shawna McCallin, and Prof. Tristan Ferry.

2.     A 1 hr symposium on Sunday 24th April (11:00-12:00). “Fighting biofilm with non-traditional antibacterials (with ESGARS)” featuring Prof. Nuno Azevedo and Prof. Rob Lavigne.

 

Also, please don’t forget about:

·      SG meeting - first annual business meeting at ECCMID in Lisbon will take place: Monday 25 April 2022 at 14:00 - 15:00 WEST (UTC+1) in Room Fernando Pessa 3 in the Altice Arena

This meeting will be a hybrid event and you can find below the Zoom meeting invitation for the ESGNTA annual business meeting. If you have any questions regarding the meeting please feel, free to reach out to Ran Nir-Paz (ran.nir-paz[at]mail.huji.ac.il). Thank you!

https://zoom.us/j/92429712342?pwd=STBsNWxDSW85M2kwem13Y0d0K0wzQT09 

Meeting ID: 924 2971 2342

Passcode: nv6wby

 

·      Other related presentations - There will also be many other presentations and topics related to our SG. To name a few will be: PK/PD studies; case series from Germany; reports from Italy; Phage antibiotic combinations; phages in FMT; Host range expansion of lytic phages.

 

ESGNTA workshop

We will be hosting an SG workshop (online). The Workshop is entitled: “Personalised phage therapy: basic principles of monitoring and treatment”, and will be held from June 7-10 and has been kindly organized by our dear members from Australia, Dr Alexandra Petrovic-Fabian and Prof. Jon Iredell.  You can find more information here:https://www.escmid.org/fileadmin/src/media/PDFs/1Dates_Events/event_flyers/ESGNTA_Course22_web.pdf  and register for the event here: https://events.escmid.org/event/34.

We hope to see you all at the workshop.

 

 

Related Conferences:

The Viruses of Microbes (VoM) meeting will be held in Portugal from July 18-22, 2022. The meeting will highlight the latest advances in microbial virus ecology and evolution, virus structures and functions, virus-host interactions, applications in agricultural, food, veterinary and environmental biotechnology, and phage therapy in the ecology and evolution of microbial viruses, virus structures and function, virus-host interaction, agro-food, veterinary and environmental biotechnology applications and phage therapy. Many of the ESGNTA members are involved in this conference and we are sure that most of us greatly benefit from both submitting abstracts and attending the conference. Abstract notification for submitted abstracts is April 22nd. Student grants are also available. Abstract deadline has been extended for poster presentations until the 31st of May.

Please find more information here: https://vom2022.org/

Early Registration deadline is the 2nd of May. 

 

Phage in military medicine –

The 44th World Congress of the International Committee on Military Medicine (ICMM) will take place 05/09/2022 - 09/09/2022 in the SQUARE Convention Centre, Brussels (Belgium). In 1921, in the aftermath of the First World War and the Spanish Flu pandemic, the first edition of what later became the ICMM World Congress was held in Brussels. The Centennial Anniversary event was originally planned to take place again in Brussels, in 2021, but was ultimately postponed until 2022 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The purpose of this global conference is to share knowledge and facilitate dynamic, productive networking among all those whose interests lie in Defense health and health care. One of the four main congress themes will be “The Battle against Infection and Phage Therapy”. Phage therapy presentations will be sheduled on Tuesday 6 (keynote addresses during the plenary sessions) and Wednesday 7 (specialised sessions) September 2022.

Please find more information here: https://www.icmmworldcongress2022.org  

 

Within NATO’s Science and Technology Organization (STO), research task groups (RTGs) allow researchers in different NATO and partner nations to work together in order to solve a particular research and technology problem. In December 2019, RTG-313 on the “Re-introduction of phage therapy in military medicine” was formed. This RTG will inventorize relevant knowledge, beyond usual literature reviews, by attempting to access the results of all relevant phage therapy studies, which were performed mainly in former Soviet Republics and in Eastern Europe over the past century. The RTG will also design evidence-based phage therapy protocols for military settings/indications. The dissemination of this knowledge should allow countries with no current own capacity for phage therapy to actually implement phage therapy with a low threshold.

 

Future SG activities:

We have few deadlines coming in the coming few months:

1.     SG workshops supported by ESCMID for 2023. If you have any ideas or suggestions, please email SG EC members your ideas and a short proposal (few sentences) so the EC could try and select the proposals with the best chance of being accepted.

2.     SG-related grants. ESCMID offers a few grants both for young scientists and for group projects – again please email EC members so we could select the proposals with the best chances to succeed.

3.     Suggested session(s) for ECCMID 2023.

 

We hope to see you in most, if not all, of these activities!

 

ESGNTA inauguration committee and Newly elected Executive committee

ESGMAC Executive Committee election results

The ESGNTA Executive Committee elections have concluded and the following members have been elected for the term of 2022-2024:

 

  • Ran Nir-Paz, Israel
  • Tristan Ferry, France
  • Jean-Paul Pirnay, Belgium
  • Shawna McCallin, Switzerland
  • Zuzanna Drulis-Kawa, Poland

 

The new Executive Committee will take office during the ESGNTA meeting at ECCMID this year.

 

You can find the full election report here

 

2021 Annual Report Published

The Annual Report showcasing the achievements of the previous year is now available to view. Be sure to check out the report to see what the Study Group was able to accomplish in 2021 as well as what they plan for the future.

ESGNTA newsletter February 2022

Dear Friends,

We would like to share with you some news about ESGNTA activitie and other related conferences:

 

ESGNTA SG Executive Committee:

According to ESCMID regulations and guidelines, we should have the election for our board coming in these very days. The election phase will be done online via the SG dedicated link, which all members will receive in the mail. The elections days will be from March 3 to 17, and the new board will take office during  ECCMID2022.

We encouradge e all members to vote and actively  participate  in these processes.

 

ECCMID Conference

The ECCMID conference will be held in Lisbon, Portugal from April 23-26. ESGNTA will have 2 sessions at this conference:

  1. A  2hr symposium on Saturday 23 April (08:30-10:30) titled “New insights into phages: Current challenges and future developments” Featuring Prof. Saija Kiljunen, Dr Krystyna Dabrowska, Dr Shawana McCallin, and Prof. Tristan Ferry.
  2. A 1 hr symposium on Sunday 24th April (11:00-12:00). Fighting biofilm with non-traditional antibacterials (with ESGARS) featuring Prof. Nuno Azevedo and Prof. Rob Lavigne

There will also be many other presentationss and topics related to our SG. To name a few will be: Pk/PD studies; case series from Germany; report from Italy; On phage antibiotic combinations; phages in FMT; Host range expansion of lytic phages.

In addition,. we will have  to have a SG meeting in ECCMID and you all can take an active role in making suggestions and activities for our SG.

 

ESGNTA workshop

As you all received in the mail, we will be hosting a SG workshop (this time online). The Workshop titled: “Personalised phage therapy: basic principles of monitoring and treatment”, will be held  from June 7-10and has been kindly organized by our dear members from Australia Dr Alexandra Petrovic-Fabian and Prof. Jon Iredell.  You can find more information here: https://www.escmid.org/fileadmin/src/media/PDFs/1Dates_Events/event_flyers/ESGNTA_Course22_web.pdf  and register to the event here: https://events.escmid.org/event/34 .

We hope to see you all at the workshop.

 

ESGNTA supported session.

We had our 2nd supported session I an International conference. The session was held during the 4th Bacteriophage Therapy Summit 2022 (online only this time). The session was titled “Factors Affecting Anticipated Efficacy in Clinical Trials & eIND Cases - an ESGNTA Session” and included talks on clinical phage microbiology by Prof. Ronen Hazan, Antibody-mediated neutralization of phages by Dr Rebekah Dedrick, Single-centre experience Vs single phage therapy experience by Prof. Saima Aslam and Prof. Ran Nir-Paz, and on therapeutic phage monitoring by Dr Ameneh Khatami.

 

Related Conferences:

The Viruses of Microbes (VoM) meeting will be held in Portugal from July 18-22, 2022. The meeting will highlight the latest advances in microbial virus ecology and evolution, virus structures and functions, virus-host interactions, applications in agricultural, food, veterinary and environmental biotechnology, and phage therapyin ecology and evolution of microbial viruses, virus structures and function, virus-host interaction, agro-food, veterinary and environmental biotechnology applications and phage therapy. Many of the ESGNTA members are involved in this conference and we are sure that most of us greatly benefit from  both submitting abstracts and attending the conference. Abstract deadline is 8th March 2022. Student grants are also available.

Please find more information here: https://vom2022.org/

 

We hope to see you in at most if not all of these activities!

 

Also If you have any information that you would like to be posed on the SG website please email Ran Nir-Paz

 

ESGNTA inauguration committee

ESGNTA Newsletter #2

2021 is coming to an end and next year will be here soon.

Those changes of the years bring some more exciting news on our SG – ESGNTA.

 

In the coming year we anticipate few major events for our SG. In chronological order:

1.     We are going to have a ESGNTA supported session in the coming 4th Bacteriophage Therapy Summit (https://bacteriophage-summit.com/ ). The conference is going to take place in 14-16 February  and is going to be virtual. The session title is “Factors Affecting Anticipated Efficacy in Clinical Trials & eIND Cases - an ESGNTA Session” and will include 5 speakers from our study group.

2.     ECCMID – our proposals for ECCMID were accepted and we anticipate to have a SG symposium at the ECCMID 2022.

3.     ECCMID – SG meeting and announcing the new SG board – as you know we anticipate to have SG board elections – more information will be distributed by the ESCMID staff in the coming few weeks.

4.     ESGNTA workshop – our proposal for workshop was accepted by the ESCMID. The organizers are Dr. Petrovic and Prof. Iredell from Sydney Australia. The topic to be “PERSONALISED PHAGE THERAPY: BASIC PRINCIPLES OF MONITORING AND TREATMENT”. Dr Petrovic and Prof. Iredell have gathered an excellent and exciting line-up of speakers and there are going to be plenty of discussions. The  Full schedule will be distributed soon.

 

During 2021 we have completed the first ESGNTA supported session that took place live in person in the coming phage futures Europe that was held in Brussels on the 23-24 November. Our session was on "Phage susceptibility testing as a basis for understanding clinical data an ESGNTA supported session". Having a live conference was a great experience and it seems that our topic created a lot of engagement from the community.

 

If you are not yet a member of our Study Group please register using the links below:

a. If you are already an ESCMID members you just need to apply  for ESGNTA (https://www.escmid.org/research_projects/study_groups/study_groups_g_n/non_traditional_antibacterial_therapy/). On the left side under membership application.

b. If you are not yet an ESCMID member you may register to ESCMID https://www.escmid.org/membership_organisation/membership/membership_application/personal_data/ and then apply for ESGNTA as explained above.

c. In case you have trouble with SG registration please email info[at]escmid.org

 

We all hope to see you in the SG activities.

We wish you all Seasons greetings Happy holidays and Happy new year!!

 

On Behalf of the interim EC

 

ESGNTA news and 1st ESGNTA supported Session in a Conference

We have some exciting news to all of our members and those who still didn’t’t register to the ESGNTA SG!

 

1. The first ESGNTA supported session is going to take in a live in person conference!
In the coming phage futures Europe (see here https://phage-futures-europe.com/events/phage-futures-europe or https://hubs.ly/H0XxWhc0) we are going to have a session in the second day:

 

Session title: Phage susceptibility testing as a basis for understanding clinical data an ESGNTA supported session

  • Prof. Ran Nir-Paz- short presentation of ESGNTA - ESCMID study group for Non Traditional Antibacterials
  • Prof. Ronen Hazan - Clinical Phage microbiology current methods advantages and pitfalls
  • Prof. Christian  Giske-  Requirements for a reference method for susceptibility testing of phages

All of you are encouraged to register and attend. In the session we are going to present ESGNTA and disucss topics related to phage antimicrobial sensitivity with specific emphasis for clinical trials.

 

2. We have submitted a session proposal and await results from the ECCMID program committee which are expected soon.

 

3. We have submitted an online course proposal arranged by the team from Sydney Australia - we thank Dr. Poterovic-Fabijan and Dr Iredell for assembling the program. We will notify all upon decision.

New ESCMID Study Group

ESGNTA is a newly formed ESCMID Study Group, which has started its activities in the field of non-traditional antibacterials including Bacteriophage antimicrobial phage and phage related products for therapy.

Objectives of ESGNTA

Contact

Activity plan:

  • Sponsor ECCMID sessions with focus on different aspects of phage therapy and non- traditional antimicrobials including:
    • Phage finding and characterisation,
    • Clinical phage microbiology,
    • Clinical outcomes and Clinical trails’ results and pitfalls.
    • Non-traditional antimicrobials as emerging tools for the treatment of infectious diseases
  • Organisation of workshop/meeting under ESCMID auspices and support on
    • Phage discovery and microbiology;
    • Production of phages and optimal carriers for clinical use;
    • Regulatory hurdles for the use of non-traditional antimicrobials in clinical settings.
  • Creation and Publication of SG phage therapy clinical cases database
  • Supporting collaboration of phage banks for clinical use

 

Publication strategy:

  1. Establishing an online registry of human phage use for infections worldwide (local and systemic application)
  2. Establishing a reference laboratory for phage biobank, testing, distribution, magistral preparation (cooperation with academic and research institutions and the ELIAVA institute in Georgia)
  3. Guidelines for emergency use of phages in human infections
  4. Guidelines on treatment with phage therapy for different site infections (e.g.  bone infections, implant-associated infections, infections in immune compromised hosts, etc.)