Tackling global AMR: Building bridges in a suboptimal geopolitical climate

Professor Timothy R. Walsh (Director of Biology, Ineos Oxford Institute of Antimicrobial Research, and Professor of Medical Microbiology, Department of Biology, University of Oxford) will deliver a lecture on tackling global antimicrobial resistance . The lecture will be followed by a question and answer session.

Professor Tim Walsh has been studying antimicrobial resistance (AMR) mechanisms for over 25 years, and publishes regularly in Nature and Lancet journals. Notably, in his career he has discovered and named two of the most notorious antibiotic resistant genes – NDM-1 and MCR-1. His work also helped discover the mobile tigecycline gene (tetX variant).   

Professor Walsh is director of BARNARDS, a Gates Foundation project on AMR, prospectively examining the burden of neonatal sepsis in Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Rwanda, South Africa, Nigeria (Abuja and Kano) and Ethiopia. Follow up programs include assessing the risks of still- born infants and maternal care in sub-Sahara Africa and assessing the impact of access to affordable antibiotics. Studies in Pakistan include the role of insects in post-surgical infections and the unfortunate global trade of colistin in agriculture. Walsh was PI of DETER-XDR-CHINA, a study examining the spread and burden of AMR in public health sectors and hospitals in 30 provinces in China. He was also PI of CUT-SEC, a ‘one-health” project in China and Thailand. In addition to the above, he heads up a Wellcome Trust study examining the international impact of COVID on AMR.

In 2020 he moved to University of Oxford and co-established the Ineos Oxford Institute of Antimicrobial Research (£100M gift from Ineos) where he is Director of Biology. As part of the Institute his key interests are: (1) The use of antimicrobials in animals and its impact of human clinical failures; (2) The drivers of AMR across all “one-health” sectors; (3) Causes and management of AMR neonatal sepsis and stillbirths in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and (4) The clinical and economic burden of AMR in LMICs.

Professor Walsh has been appointed to the Fleming Fund expert advisory panel – a rolling UK government AMR capacity building program in LMICs. He is also advisor to the Foundation Merieux AMR teaching program and is a member of the WHO Strategic and Technical Advisory Group for Antimicrobial Resistance (STAG-AMR). 

In addition to the above he holds an honorary chair at the China Agricultural University in veterinary microbiology and is advisor to the ENABLE 2 program on drug discovery. In 2020, he was awarded an OBE for “Microbiology and International Development” and in 2022 was awarded his DSc (University of Bristol). 

This is one of the events in the on-going China Forum Seminar series, hosted by the China Forum, Jesus College. The seminars, given by eminent speakers, cover a broad range of topics and disciplines.

Booking

This is a virtual seminar. Attendance is free. Advance booking is required by emailing: china-forum@jesus.cam.ac.uk.  Priority will be given to members of Jesus College and the University of Cambridge.