Dear All (and with thanks to Aaron Dane for co-authoring this newsletter AND inhale, exhale … this is going to be a long, wonkish, but VERY important note! Get coffee! Get to a calm place! Clear your head! Read on!), Provoked by a recent paper on the idea of DTR (Difficult-to-Treat Resistance) by Walker et al.
Dear All (wonkish but stick with it … I’m going to try very hard to de-wonk it; addendum: see also the follow-up newsletters, most recently on 22 Dec 2025), In an absolutely terrifying paper and technical report in today’s issue of Science, we are introduced in detail to the concept of “mirror” bacteria in which
This newsletter is part of a series — here are the links to Part 1, (this one is Part 2), Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5. Also relevant is the 5 April 2024 newsletter entitled “48,015 → 0: Antibacterial Discovery Is Hard. Really, Really Hard.“ You might also enjoy the discussion of AI-supported discovery in this May 2026 video from
Dear All (and with thanks to Arjun Srinivasan for co-authoring this wonkish newsletter — prepare yourself! Know also that we’ve written a parallel newsletter entitled “Economic modeling of the value of rapid diagnostics” that discusses the use of modeling to estimate the value of diagnostics in general): Driven by ongoing work to encourage use as
Dear All (and again with thanks to Arjun Srinivasan for co-authoring this pair of newsletters): In parallel with the newsletter discussing a recent paper on the impact of rapid antimicrobial susceptibility testing (27 May 2026 newsletter, “Limits on measuring the impact of rapid AST”), we have release of an exceptionally well-done classic economic approach showing
Dear All (wonkish but intended for everybody to read and absorb): 27 Jan 2021 update: This topic now has its own YouTube video! As the ideas here are VERY confusing, I suggest you make the time to watch the video, read the newsletter, and then watch the video one more time. I have yet to
Dear All (and with thanks to Robert Bonomo and Patricia Bradford for guiding me on this newsletter; anything that’s correct is due to Patricia and Robert; all the mistakes are mine!), This wonkish note has a short, simple version above my signature and then a longer version below by signature. The beta-lactam / beta-lactamase wizards will
Note: See also these related newsletters: 20 Feb 2020 (link) on DTR as part of the language of resistance and 7 June 2020 (link) on using DTR to estimate antibiotic value. There is also a 5-minute DTR explainer on YouTube that you might find useful. Dear All: When thinking about studies of resistant pathogens, issues
Dear All (wonkish … but worth it … get ready to follow the links!), Greetings in the new year! As a marvelous way to end the last year, the US FDA announced on 12 Dec 2025 its approval of two new oral therapies for gonorrhea, thus addressing the priority pathogen lists of both WHO (High
Dear All (prepare for something that is delightfully different and marvelously wonkish AND with thanks to Lance Price for co-authoring this newsletter), Continuing with the theme in the 15 Aug 2025 newsletter (“Global livestock resistome: Antibiotic resistance is widespread!”) of ways to use sequencing of samples from the environment, we have today an amazing paper in