During our Science Briefing on AMR, we presented funding opportunities and discussed how we can leverage data to combat AMR with a global response and a one-health approach.
On 23 April 2024, the Swedish Research Council and SwissCore jointly organised a Science Briefing on “Harnessing the power of data to tackle AMR”.
After a welcome of the organisers of the event, Ellenor Devine (Head of Office (Research), SWERI) and Sarah Bühler (Senior European Advisor for Research, SwissCore), Shawon Lahiri (Senior analyst, JPIAMR Secretariat, Swedish Research Council) presented the plans for the upcoming co-funded European Partnership on One Health AMR (OHAMR). Shawon indicated that Sweden is currently coordinating the Joint Programming Initiative on Antimicrobial Resistance (JPIAMR) and that the Swedish Research Council along with other interested member countries are currently preparing a proposal for the OHAMR that will be submitted in September 2024, with the plan to launch the partnership in 2025 with an estimated budget of 330M€. Shawon also highlighted that the partnership foresees three challenge-driven focus areas that covers the thematic areas (therapeutics, diagnostics, surveillance, transmission and evolution as well as interventions) with a one-health approach, including four overarching programmes (R&I funding programme, capacity strengthening programme, data exploitation programme, impact programme). For the data exploitation programme, a taskforce has been established, and representatives of the Swiss National Science Foundation are also actively contributing. Important is to highlight that OHAMR also plans synergies with other partnerships, such as the Animal Health and Welfare Partnership and the Biodiversa+ Partnership. Moreover, Shawon highlighted the continuous efforts at the EU level and referred to the EU One Health Action plan against AMR launched in 2017, the establishment of the European Health Union in 2020, the Reform of the EU Pharmaceutical legislation as well as the Council Recommendation as some of the essential measures on stepping up EU actions to combat AMR in a one-health approach.
Besides, for the Swedish initiatives, Madeleine Durbeej Hjalt (Secretary General in Medicine and Health, Swedish Research Council) indicated that AMR is a key topic for Sweden and that the country even appointed Malin Grape in 2022 as the first AMR Ambassador worldwide to strengthen global efforts against AMR further. Madeleine also referred to the recently updated Swedish AMR strategy and ReAct, an international independent network created in 2005 to articulate the complex nature of antibiotic resistance and its drivers, with substantial contributions from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), the Swedish Ministry of Health and Social Affairs, and Uppsala University.
At the same time, Switzerland is contributing to numerous Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe research and innovation projects, which hold significant promise for advancing solutions to the AMR challenge, and has a National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) AntiResist, and had a National Research Programme (NRP 72) on Antimicrobial Resistance, funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation, two initiatives that Flurina Kuhn (Scientific Officer, Swiss National Science Foundation) presented during the event. Flurina also highlighted the Swiss Strategy on antibiotic Resistance (StAR) with eight fields of activity, including research and development. She also referred to the successful Swiss participation in JPIAMR in the past and the participation in the new OH AMR.
Furthermore, leading academics in the field of AMR provided inputs on how we can leverage data to combat this growing global threat:
Jenny Frössling (Associate Prof., Swedish Veterinary Agency) provided inputs on veterinary research, indicating that there are significant ongoing initiatives for the harmonisation of data. However, the issue is that local solutions are still in use, with small and simple tools, with non-digital data and missing information or poor registering. Hence the problem is that information is often missing, and data availability and access are limited (due to a difficulty to share data even between authorities of the same Member State, and imbalances in data and data access). Other challenges represent the uncertainties about legislation, the data security demand, and the worry that data could be misused or misunderstood. Moreover, she also underlined the challenge of data ownership and the use of data. Finally, Jenney highlighted the importance of integrating data tools to make better decisions, as national experts and researchers often do not have access to the data. So, there is a need to find ways to combine the data, for which Animal Health Ireland (ahi) and SvarmIT are successful examples.
Alexandre Persat (Associate Prof., EPFL, NCCR AntiResist) indicated that AI will not solve the AMR crisis, but that high-quality data is missing to advance treatment. Then, he provided an input about the work at the PERSAT lab at the EPFL that is working on a new perspective on infections, with a focus on biophysical aspects of bacterial infections. To tackle this problem, the lab employs tissue-engineered human organoid systems, enabling studies of infection at high resolution. Besides, Alexandre explained that he collaborates with practitioners to provide a personalised phage therapy against antibiotic-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa respiratory infections. Moreover, he participates in the National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) AntiResist which aims to bring a paradigm shift in antibiotic discovery, close the gap between the bedside and the bench, bridge disciplines and institutions within Switzerland, and to stimulate long-lasting partnerships with the private sector and to equip future generations of scientist with interdisciplinary expertise. It also embraces the principle of open science and collaboration, considering that AMR is a global challenge to promote data sharing within and outside of NCCR as a unifying platform for data stored in resources across any institution.
Noémie Boillat Blanco (MD-PhD, Médecin adjointe, Senior lecturer, Privat Docent, Division of Infectious Diseases, University Hospital of Lausanne, University of Lausanne) provided an overview of the National Research Programme (NRP 72) on Antimicrobial Resistance that tackled AMR with a one-health approach in three thematic areas (Routes and reservoirs of AMR Determinants; One Health AMR-Surveillance, faster diagnostics and new therapeutic approaches; and optimised use of antibiotics and behaviour changes). Afterwards, she presented her project, funded under the NRP72 for the optimised use of antibiotics and behaviour changes. She indicated the direct link between antibiotic consumption and resistance and the need for improved diagnostic tools to tackle inappropriate use in primary care, where most antibiotic prescriptions occur. Her project demonstrated that a simple point-of-care test with an objective result led to a large decrease in antibiotic prescription. She is currently focusing on large-scale implementation of the test to make a tangible impact on resistance. Besides, Noémie established a multimodal multi-task digital decision support network for setting-specific recommendations on antibiotics, for which she also collaborates with Prof. Professor Hartley of EPFL and Yale University.
Finally, a round table on the Power of Data, moderated by Madeleine Durbeej Hjalt, gathered leading experts in the field:
Aitana Neves (Associate Director Clinical Bioinformatics, Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics) explained that Switzerland established the Swiss Pathogen Surveillance Platform (SPSP) with a one-health perspective, which aims to enable pathogen surveillance across and among different human, animal and environmental sources. SPSP is hosted and developed by the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (SIB) in collaboration with the University Hospitals of Basel, Lausanne and Geneva, as well as the Universities of Bern and Zurich. Early in 2021, SPSP was mandated by the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) and the Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) to initially collect, process and annotate the SARS-CoV-2 genomic data from the national surveillance programme and to share them, under a well-defined legal framework, with the FOPH, the European COVID-19 Data Portal and the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data (GISAID). It is since 2021, the third worldwide contributor of open SARS-CoV-2 raw data, therefore giving a lot of visibility in the European context and the ELIXIR infrastructures. Aitana also co-led ELIXIR CONVERGE WP9 that aimed to mobilise viral genomes from national sequencing efforts to offer true open data resources for surveilling COVID-19 variants on the European COVID-19 Data Platform. In addition, such efforts will ensure the commitment to the open sharing of variant data through the ENA. The previously established Community of Practice of Pathogen Data Platforms is now consolidating within the BY-COVID project and in the ELIXIR Pathogen Data Focus group, where important tasks involve assessing the maturity of pathogen data platforms and providing tools for self-assessment and improvement. Aitana also submitted a grant proposal last summer, which has received some interest, to establish a global network of interoperable pathogen data platforms.
Licinio Kustra Mano (Policy Officer on EHDS, DG SANTE, European Commission) explained that in March 2024, a provisional agreement on a new regulation for the European Health Data Space (EHDS) was reached. As the next steps, the provisional agreement should be endorsed by the Council and the Parliament and afterwards, enter into force by the regulation. There are different transition periods, and the regulations should become applicable before the end of 2028. EHDS has two main goals: providing individual access to personal electronic health data as primary use, and it also foresees secondary use in which researchers and policymakers gain access to specific health data to enable the potential of health data and niche innovation in the health domain with a specific public interest in mind. Licinio also highlighted the difficulties of sharing of clinical data due to legal issues and indicated that the European Commission wants to start a study on how to share data in AMR and how that it can be utilised.
Karel Luyben (President, EOSC Association) explained that EOSC Association includes 250 partners (members and observers) in Europe. The development of EOSC is based on a co-programmed partnership under Horizon Europe, and after 2027, it will probably have an institutionalised governance. EOSC is building a federated structure to connect data from and services for research, creating a web of FAIR data with services. It is not top-down, and it is based on four overarching principles, the so-called FAIR principles. In this context, Karel highlighted that you need metadata to make data FAIR and interact with communities with the same approach. He also indicated that it is still challenging to combine for example clinical and biological data, from different sources, such as animal health data, due to missing common standards, allowing interoperability, etc. Consequently, EOSC is one of the data spaces that aims to connect all other European data spaces, including EHDS. In this context, a working group has started to connect EOSC with EHDS.
The panel members agreed that learnings of data sharing under Covid-19 should be transferred and used for AMR and beyond, and that synergies across disciplines need to be created. The panel also indicated that data will remain at local hubs. However, data needs to be made findable, following data standards for better harmonisation and implementation. Besides, machine-readable data should be available. Finally, research funders also need to support and set standards for data sharing.