Come join us in our new Long Island City lab and hear our friend Tomislav speak about his work with antimicrobial resistance (AMR). We will aim for a 45 minute lecture. 45 minutes will ber eserved to ask questions, and discuss with the speaker or amongst attendees. Light refreshments will be served.

We ask that attendees provide proof of vaccination or negative SARS-CoV-2 test and wear a mask when not eating.

The doors may be locked in which case please call our lab phone and someone will let you in: 7086371289

Detailed Description

From the global burden estimation models to citizen-driven research and surveillance efforts: assembling a mixed toolbox for combating the overlooked pandemic of antimicrobial resistance

This lecture will consist of three parts. First the emphasis will be on research efforts by the presenter that took him on a journey from a small country with high antibiotic consumption rates all the way to the United States and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington in Seattle, where he got involved in the global AMR research project. More than ten years ago he started with the surveillance of antimicrobial susceptibility patterns of Chlamydia trachomatis, but quickly transitioned to appraising resistance determinants in pathogens such as Eschericha coli on a national level, but also regionally in neighboring countries. The resistance problem urged him to collaborate in research teams and propose novel treatment solutions for both Escherichia coli and Chlamydia trachomatis. Now at the IHME and University of Washington he is a part of the AMR research for global AMR burden and time-trend estimation (in collaboration with the University of Oxford) and also leading a study on the burden of AMR in the WHO European region. Results from these global and regional assessments will be presented in the second part of the talk. Finally, the third part of the talk will cover the role of citizen science in the global approach to tackle antimicrobial resistance by highlighting practical examples from Europe, the participation of public in the discovery of novel antibiotics, and the efforts to increase perception of microbiology in students with the exposure to news stories, which is a project that the presenter is doing in collaboration with North Park University in Chicago.

About the visiting scholar

Tomislav Meštrović is a medical doctor and a clinical microbiology specialist/consultant with MD/PhD degrees from the University of Zagreb, MPH degree from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, and an additional 1-year training in clinical trials at Harvard Medical School. He is an Associate Professor at University North in Croatia, and a Visiting Professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. Since 2017 Tomislav is a Croatian collaborator for the Global Burden of Disease enterprise, and in the academic year 2021/2022 he became a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at the IHME and the Department of Health Metrics Sciences at the University of Washington, working in the AMR team and the GRAM project. He is a Secretary-General of the Croatian Society for Clinical Microbiology and a Member of the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) CHOMA Committee and the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) External Affairs Committee. He is a Global Coordinator for Country Representatives of the Health Information for All (HIFA) Network. Tomislav holds fellowships from the Royal Society for Public Health (FRSHP) and the College of American Pathologists (IFACP). He is an avid lecturer, science communicator and an active proponent of science diplomacy.