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1st
EMBL/EMBO Joint Conference 2000 |
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Session
IV |
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| Antibiotics for the 21st century |
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Julian Davies, Emeritus Professor, Microbiology and Immunology and Chief Scientific
Officer of TerraGen Discovery Inc., Vancouver, Canada
The latter half of the last century saw significant reductions
in morbidity and mortality due to infectious diseases following
the discovery of antibiotics and the overall improvement of living
conditions in industrialised nations. However, the treatment of
infectious diseases is presently in a state of crisis as a result
of [1] the development of increasing incidence of antibiotic resistance
in all type of pathogenic microbes; [2] the emergence and reemergence
of various infectious agents of humans which were thought to be
controlled [such as tuberculosis] or those that have only recently
been identified as pathogens [such as Lyme disease or HIV/AIDS].
Many factors have contributed to this state of affairs and major
health organisations such as WHO and the FDA [US] have begun to
institute worldwide action to attempt to ameliorate the situation.
One requirement is the continuing supply of therapeutic agents that
can be employed in the [directed] treatment of infection. The discovery
of novel antibiotics has not kept up with the development of resistance
and as a result, the available compounds have become less and less
effective. This is not surprising, since antibiotic resistance in
microbes is inevitable; in addition, the situation is compounded
by the fact that promiscuous gene transfer is a bacterial life style.
Resistance cannot be treated, it can only be delayed. Where will
new therapies come from?
Biography
Julian Davies is Emeritus Professor of Microbiology and Immunology
and Chief Scientific Officer of TerraGen Discovery Inc. Trained
as an organic chemist, he switched to molecular microbiology in
1962 when he joined Harvard Medical School. Subsequently, he held
academic positions at the University of Wisconsin, University of
Geneva, and Institut Pasteur before joining UBC as Head of Microbiology
and Immunology in 1992. Davies was Research Director and President
of Biogen [Geneva] from 1980-1985 and founded TerraGen Discovery
Inc. [Vancouver] in 1996 where he is Chief Scientific Officer. He
is a Fellow of the Royal Society [London] and the Royal Society
of Canada. He is past President of the American Society for Microbiology.
Davies' interests concern various aspects of microbial ecology.
In particular, he has studied the origins and mechanisms of antibiotic
resistance in bacteria, with special reference to gene capture and
horizontal gene transfer. He is also studying the degradation pathways
of xenobiotics and lignin-derived products by streptomycetes. The
focus of work at TerraGen Discovery Inc. is the study of microbes
in the environment with special reference to the predominant non-cultivatable
species. Molecular techniques are being used to isolate genes for
antibiotic biosynthetic pathways to study their expression in surrogate
hosts with the goal of isolating novel secondary metabolites for
pharmaceutical application. |
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