Biophysical Society Bulletin | October 2022

Thematic Meetings

Physical and Quantitative Approaches to Overcome Antibiotic Resistance Stockholm, Sweden | August 14–18, 2022

Antimicrobial resistance is an increasingly pressing challenge to human health. A series of strident wake-up calls have highlighted the increasing prevalence of microbial resistance to all approved drugs as well as the lack of robust pipelines and strategies to deal with resistance. Physical sciences ap proaches have an important role to play in the response to this challenge, whether increasing our basic understanding of the underlying physiology, improving the systematic targeting of new therapeutics, or engineering new therapeutic approaches. This meeting aimed to bring all of these together, covering a broad variety of approaches with a common physical sciences background and a common goal. The intimate size of the meeting facilitated dialogue, as we had 16 invited talks, 11 contributed talks, 26 posters, and a total of 56 registered attendees. In addition to the meeting site at Karolinska Institute, attendees enjoyed continuing their discussions at the numerous outdoor restaurants that Stock holm has to offer. Scientific sessions covered influx and efflux across bacterial membranes—key factors in considering new antimicrobial therapies—as well as structural and imaging approaches to the bacterial physiology underlying membrane barriers and antimicrobial resistance. Additional exciting talks identified opportunities in bacterial membrane organization, new vaccine targets, and new engineering approaches to delivery, target ed therapies, and diagnostics. Several intrepid speakers also branched out beyond bacterial pathogens to address fungal and mycobacterial threats.

Common themes included leveraging computational, imaging, and new engineering technologies to gain an edge in the battle against microbial pathogens. We hope that the exchange of ideas and new approaches presented will catalyze further progress in this critical endeavor. The meeting organizers, Peter Kasson (University of Virginia), Georgios Sotiriou (Karolins ka Institute), and Joann Slusky (University of Kansas), would like to thank all the participants, the Society, and the sponsoring foundations for nurturing our scientific community as we con tinue to mobilize against microbial threats.

Meeting Organizers from left to right: Peter Kasson, Georgios Sotiriou, and Joann Slusky.

October 2022

18

T H E N E W S L E T T E R O F T H E B I O P H Y S I C A L S O C I E T Y