World Antibiotic Awareness Week
11/11
Each November, the WHO's World Antibiotic Awareness Week (WAAW) aims to increase global awareness of antibiotic resistance (AMR) and to encourage best practices among the general public, health workers and policy makers to avoid the further emergence and spread of antibiotic resistance.
Since the discovery of penicillin, researchers have developed better and better antibiotics to fight microbial infection. Bacteria, in turn, have evolved more and more effective ways of resisting these drugs: by destroying them, by pumping them out, or by modifying the target of the drug. Atomic structures help us understand resistance to antibiotics and develop new ways to fight infection.
New resources at PDB-101 are available to learn about AMR at the molecular level.
The poster Superbugs! How Bacteria Evolve Resistance to Antibiotics highlights the protein structures that medical researchers are using to search for ways to fight these superbugs.
The 2018 Video Challenge inspired instructive videos created by high school students that presented the Mechanisms of Bacterial Resistance to Beta-lactam Antibiotics.
Mechanisms of Bacterial Resistance to Aminoglycoside Antibiotics is focus of the 2019 Video Challenge. High schools students are asked to tell a story that communicates the molecular changes that occur in bacteria that help them to become resistant to aminoglycoside antibiotics using relevant 3D protein structures. Videos should also address the dangerously high level of antibiotic resistance caused by misuse and overuse of antibiotics. Entries can be submitted as early as January 15, 2019.
The AMR Browse category links to all AMR-related resources at PDB-101.
Past news and events have been reported at the RCSB PDB website and past Newsletters.
