Annual Report (2010/2011) of the Canadian Antimicrobial Resistance Alliance (CARA)
CARA is headquartered in the Department of Medical Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Manitoba. Research collaboration is extensive in Manitoba, across Canada with CARA network of ~25 sites in 8 of 10 provinces. Collaboration extends to ~35 sites in the US. The official website of CARA is www.can-r.ca.
In 2010/2011 CARA presented 42 ICAAC/IDSA/ECCMID/ASM/CACMID/AMMI abstracts and published ~22 papers but the highlite was the publication of an invited supplement in the journal Diagnostic Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (DMID) in 2011.
This invited supplement was focused on CARA’s national surveillance study assessing antimicrobial resistance in Canadian hospitals-CANWARD.
Other highlites for CARA include: the growing participation of our ID/MM fellows (eg. Drs. Andrew Walkty (now on staff and active research member, Philippe Lagace-Wiens (now on staff and active research member), Sergio Fanella (now on staff and active research member) and Jared Bullard (now on staff and active research member); the strong and growing collaboration with Dr. Mike Mulvey’s group at the National Microbiology Laboratory (NML); the new collaboration with Dr. Matt Gilmour at the National Microbiology Laboratory (NML regarding the national Streptococcus surveillance program); the full integration of Dr. James Karlowsky back into our research group; the quality of research and awards obtained by our graduate students (Trish Baudry-Simner-Trish is off to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester Minnesota Aug 2011 to begin her PDF, Aleksandra Wierzbowski and Franil Tailor) and BSc med student (Ben Fultz); bringing Dr. Heather Adam back to Winnipeg as a microbiologist at DSM and researcher within CARA; as mentioned above, the success of our national surveillance study (CANWARD 2007 – present) assessing antimicrobial resistance in Canadian hospitals (published supplement in DMID in 2011); CARA’s participation in the publication of the Canadian practice guidelines for surgical intra-abdominal infections; hosting visiting professor’s including Dr. Tom Louie and Dr. Johann Pitout, the strong collaboration with Dr Alfred Gin and IMS Canada regarding antimicrobial usage in Canada; the collaboration with Drs. Sheryl Zelenitsky, Robert Ariano, Ayman Noreddin (Hampton Univ) and David Nicolau (Hartford hospital) regarding antimicrobial pharmacodynamics/Monte Carlo simulations; the growing collaboration with Cangene Corp/Richardson nutriceuticals in Winnipeg; the productive (6 patents) collaboration with Dr. Frank Schweizer (chemist at the Fort Garry campus) focusing on the discovery/development of aminoglycoside fusion antibiotics; and the growing success of our official website www.can-r.ca.
A huge thank you to Drs. Joanne Embree, Ethan Rubinstein, Amin Kabani, Frank Plummer and Alan Ronald for their support and encouragement.
Submitted August 26, 2011 by George G. Zhanel, Professor of Medical Microbiology and Research Director of CARA