How can we make antibiotics more affordable?

Advocating for the wellbeing of our patients

- DR. EDSEL MAURICE T. SALVANA

HEALTH ADVOCATES Grace Hernaez, RMT, and the author at their poster in IDWeek.

Every year, thousands of infectious disease doctors from around the world troop to IDWeek, the premier clinical infectious disease conference that is usually held in the US.

I go to IDWeek for several reasons: to listen to the state-of-the-art lectures; to see old friends and network with potential collaborators; and to present our work. This year’s IDWeek was held in the city of Atlanta in the state of Georgia. Georgia is known as the Peach State and is in the southeast region of the US. Atlanta is the capital city of Georgia and is a major economic and transport hub. Atlanta is the birthplace of Martin Luther King Jr. and played a central role in the civil rights movement, leading to desegregation and ensuring voting rights for nonwhite minorities. It is home to the world’s busiest airport, and it is where the Coca-Cola company was founded.

This year, my laboratory at the Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology had two posters accepted for presentation, and I had a talk on the BugHub World Stage. Presenting posters in international conferences is one of the best ways to disseminate scientific knowledge to our global colleagues, and our lab has been presenting annually at IDWeek (and its previous iteration, the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) Annual Conference) since 2012, except for the pandemic years. Our work on a portable HIV drug resistance test won the Innovation of the Year Award in 2023 in Boston, beating many US-based programs and technology incubators.