Press Releases

Dr. Jacinda Abdul-Mutakabbir explores the intersection of antibiotic resistance and health/vaccine equity, with a specific focus on racial differences observed across racially and ethnically minoritized groups. 

Levy CIMAR's  own Shira Doron, MD, presented for this month's Science Seminar on the topic of “Diagnostic Stewardship as a Tool for Antimicrobial Stewardship.” Dr. Doron is a widely recognized expert in the fields of antimicrobial and diagnostic stewardship, and among her many titles, is Chief Infection Control Officer for Tufts Medicine. There, she Infection Control and Antimicrobial Stewardship.

Prof. Alan F. Cowman heads a laboratory at WEHI where he and his team aim to advance the understanding of how malaria-causing parasites invade human cells. The seminar, "Discovery and Development of Novel Antimalarials and Their Use as Chemical Tools to Discover New Biology of the Malaria Parasite," was jointly sponsored by the Levy CIMAR, the TUSM Global Health Faculty Council, and the Tufts Center for Global Public Health. Prof. Cowman and his lab study Plasmodium falciparum and other Plasmodium spp. to determine how they infect humans and cause disease. The

Roby Bhattacharyya, MD, PhD, maintains a lab at the Broad where he and his team pursue basic and translational research on pathogenic microbes, with a particular focus on antimicrobial resistance and transcriptional responses to antibiotic exposure, and on characterizing their impact on infected patients, including the immune responses elicited upon systemic infection such as sepsis or COVID-19. For today's seminar, Dr. Bhattacharyya focused mainly on resistance to carbapenems. Based on a series of observations from the MGH Clinical Microbiology lab and some Bhattacharyya Lab transcriptional experiments, Dr. Bhattacharyya and team are

CIMAR hosted 33 students from Boston-area Brockton High School last week for a rare educational and networking opportunity. Students presented posters depicting original experiments and data on antimicrobial resistance to a wide audience of Tufts University and Tufts Medical Center members.

MGH Research Fellow Bryan Lenneman, PhD, is interested in utilizing synthetic biology to develop novel therapeutics against diseases associated with dysbiosis of the human gut microbial community.

Lyme disease expert Peter Gwynne, PhD, presented on “Metabolic Modeling Predicts Unique Drug Targets in the Lyme Disease Pathogen Borrelia burgdorferi” for the Levy CIMAR's February 2023 Science Seminar. Dr. Gwynne is interested in Borrelia burgdorferi, which causes Lyme disease, and the molecular mechanisms the bacterium uses to transition between different hosts such as ticks, mice, and humans. His research aims to exploit these unique metabolic interactions to design targeted drugs for Lyme disease.

Tufts University Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine’s Claire Fellman, D.V.M., Ph.D., DACVIM (SA), DACVCP  is interested in One Health approaches to antimicrobial stewardship in veterinary medicine.

Tufts University Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine’s Diafuka Saila-Ngita, DVM, MSc, PhD, is interested in addressing the challenges of antimicrobial stewardship in low-income nations such as the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Tufts Medical Center’s Husain Poonawala, MBBS, MPH, is interested in tuberculosis and non-tuberculous mycobacteria, how next-generation sequencing and novel diagnostic methods can be integrated into clinical care.

Infections of all kinds—tuberculosis, dental infections, HIV, sexually transmitted infections, COVID-19, and more—are common in jails and prisons, making these facilities places where antibiotics are frequently prescribed. Unfortunately, sometimes antibiotics are prescribed even though they are not clinically indicated, the wrong antibiotics are prescribed, or antibiotics are prescribed for too long. The Levy CIMAR's Alysse G. Wurcel, MD, MS, presented on “Antimicrobial Stewardship in Jails and Prisons: When Will Then be Now?” Dr. Wurcel is an attending physician in Geographic Medicine and Infectious Diseases at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, a doctor

In the research laboratory, Dr. Patel and her colleagues focus on biofilms, which cause a large number of infections in modern clinical practice, such as prosthetic joint infection and endocarditis. She and her team are unraveling the process of biofilm formation and resistance of biofilms to antibiotics. They are developing new and improved diagnostic tools and treatment strategies for biofilm-associated infections. Her group uses in vitro studies as well as animal models of infection for their studies.

Did you know that a human breast milk protein complex called HAMLET can help reverse the antibiotic resistance of bacterial species, including penicillin-resistant Streptococcus pneumoniae and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus? Lund University’s Anders P. Håkansson, PhD, presented on his work with HAMLET today for our first Levy CIMAR Science Lunch of 2022. His talk was titled, “How HAMLET, a Human Milk Protein, Kills Bacteria and Reverses Antibiotic Resistance.”

Bacteriophages are viruses that specifically target and kill bacteria, preventing bacterial infections, and Dr. Andrew Camilli and his lab study the bacteriophages that kill V. cholerae. Dr. Camilli is also co-founder and scientific advisor to PhagePro, Inc., a Boston-based startup aiming to use bacteriophages to prevent bacterial infections. With the unmitigated rise of antibiotic resistance and the known negative consequences of gut dysbiosis caused by broad-spectrum antibiotics, bacteriophages provide a side effect-free alternative for preventing disease in clinical and community contexts.

Tim van Opijnen, PhD, an Associate Professor of Biology at Boston College and an Affiliate member of the Levy CIMAR, presented for our May 2021 Levy CIMAR Science Lunch on his group's work on antimicrobial resistance. His talk was titled, "From Detection to Predicting Infectious Disease and Antibiotic Resistance Outcomes: Employing Experimental Evolution, Omics-Stress Mapping and Computational Biology to Determine and Predict What Matters in Antibiotic Resistance." Dr. Martinot is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Infectious Diseases and Global Health at Cummings. She is a board-certified veterinary pathologist

Veterinary pathologist Amanda J. Martinot (DVM, MPH, PhD) of the Tufts University Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine presented for our Monthly Science Meeting on Thursday, January 28, on two articles of interest in the COVID-19 pandemic: The first on the pre-clinical results for the Regeneron monoclonal Ab for SARS CoV-2 in hamsters and monkeys (Science), with additional discussion of the clinical trial of the same in people (NEJM). You can find a video of her talk below. Dr. Martinot is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Infectious Diseases and Global

As an internationally recognized expert on drug development science and policy, the Levy CIMAR's Dr. Kenneth I. Kaitin writes and speaks regularly on factors that contribute to the slow pace and high cost of pharmaceutical R&D and efforts to improve the development process. He has provided public testimony before the U.S. Congress on pharmaceutical development, regulation, and policy issues, and he currently serves as an expert consultant to the U.S. Department of Defense on bioterror countermeasures initiatives.During his 23 years as Tufts CSDD's Director, the group has tackled complex and

The Levy CIMAR hosted our second annual collaborative workshop titled “Fighting AMR Together” earlier this month, offering a platform for investigators and clinicians to showcase their research and promoting opportunities for partnership both within and outside of the Tufts network. The two-day workshop, held Nov. 5-6, 2020, began with welcoming remarks from Levy CIMAR Director Helen Boucher, MD, Senior Leadership member, John Leong, MD/PhD, and Executive Director Brian Noonan, PhD, on the Center’s achievements so far and our plans for the near future.

We at the Levy CIMAR are honored to be named for Dr. Stuart B. Levy, whose pioneering work in fighting antibiotic misuse and resistance was a key inspiration behind our Center. During his more than four decades at Tufts University and Tufts Medical Center, Dr. Levy led the paradigm shift in how we view antibiotic use and stewardship. In his work on mechanisms of antibiotic resistance and spread of resistance determinants among microbes, his was the first voice of warning of the dangers of antibiotic overuse in the emergence of

Tufts Mini-Med School dovetails with CIMAR’s mission in that it is uniquely interdisciplinary in its One Health approach. The program draws on an array of schools beyond the School of Medicine dedicated to the health science and medicine at Tufts University, including: the School of Dental Medicine, the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, the Friedman School of Nutrition Science & Policy, and the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. The program emphasized infectious diseases and immunology, with examples drawn from the COVID-19 pandemic. The students also learned about multi-drug resistance/antimicrobial resistance

CIMAR hosted 33 students from Boston-area Brockton High School last week for a rare educational and networking opportunity. Students presented posters depicting original experiments and data on antimicrobial resistance to a wide audience of Tufts University and Tufts Medical Center members.

Tufts and MassBio held the first Tufts@Kendall event, bringing together CIMAR researchers and clinicians with more than 80 members of the biomedical community to discuss the latest advances in infectious disease and antimicrobial resistance at Tufts University.

The event brought together over 175 clinicians and researchers from academia, medicine, and industry, all interested in fighting drug-resistant diseases via a “One Health” approach. One Health prioritizes the relationship among people, animals, the environment, and the foods we all consume as critical avenues by which drug-resistant bacteria spread from one to another

The Tufts Center for Integrated Management of Antimicrobial Resistance (CIMAR) hosted its first event last month to introduce the Center to the local scientific community and to offer a platform for investigators and clinicians to showcase their research and promote collaborations.