2024/03/12 by Wiktoria Wisniewska, Joe Latimer
#AMR awareness #Al-Aqsa University #Gaza City #Klebsiella pneumoniae #Salford science research #antimicrobial resistance #antimicrobial susceptibility testing #bacterial virulence factors #biofilm formation #planktonic growth dynamics #research opportunity
paper · doi:10.57898/biosci.193
We all know that antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a huge, and very worrying problem. What we might not all be so aware of is that AMR, like too many other awful things in our world, disproportionately affects the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people. Dr Latimer works with collaborators around the world to explore how and why the bacteria in resource-poor countries resist antibiotics and what we might be able to do about it.Currently, Dr Latimer's group is investigating the sensitivity of clinical isolates of K. pneumoniae to important antibiotics, and how well-adapted they are to cause severe disease. The results so far are not good – they are resistant to multiple classes of antibiotics. K. pneumoniae can cause severe diseases such as pneumonia, wound infections, and septicaemia, and is on the WHO priority watchlist of pathogens. The isolates that Dr Latimer is working with were collected from patients from six hospitals throughout Gaza. These strains are now likely spreading within the population, particularly since so many people are displaced, injured, and/or suffering from a lack of water and food. Medical capacity, of course, is also severely limited, and only one of the six hospitals still stands.This interview will shed light on this ongoing research and its wider contextual impact on antimicrobial resistance.