The Days of Molecular Medicine (DMM) 2016 meeting titled “Bugs to Bedside to Biotech” took place on October 27 – 28 at the Karolinska Institutet this past week. The meeting highlighted the interface of new technologies to fight the next generation of infective agents, pandemics and superbugs being created by the over-use of antibiotics. The event was organized by Karolinska Institutet from Stockholm, the DMM Global Foundation based in Cambridge, USA and the IPSEN Foundation in Paris, France.
In addition to these topics, the meeting will probe new approaches to expanding access to new technological advances for the communities most affected, which are often least able to cover the inherent costs.
Bactiguard played a proud role in sponsoring this vital meeting, with Christian Kinch, CEO underlining the importance of “Bridging the gap between science and industry.” He continued, “It is vital in order to be able to break the complex chain of factors that lead to antibiotic resistance. We are very proud of being able to facilitate such a crucial event.”
Dr Michael Calderwood, currently the Regional Hospital Epidemiologist at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, reviewed the evolution of public reporting and value based payment measures that target healthcare-associated infections in US hospitals during DMM 2016. Calderwood also visited Bactiguard HQ last week to discuss the importance of preventive technologies in contributing to the decrease of HAI in US hospitals – both from a patient outcome and financial standpoint. Calderwood further went on to delineate that in countries with public payer systems such as Sweden, investing in HAI prevention early on could yield great savings to the healthcare system in the future.
One of the chairs of DMM 2016, Kenneth Chien, also chairs the Bactiguard scientific advisory board and commented, “The area of new global infectious agents has the same importance to humanity as global warming. The technology exists to attack the problem and is getting better. The challenge now is creating incentives to attack the problem across culture, science, medicine at a global level. It is a fight we cannot afford to lose.”
The DMM Global Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to breaking new ground in a specific arena that is both timely and critical to translational science at the highest level, and is not intended to highlight a single disease area or technology.
