Interdepartmental conference dedicated to World Antibiotic Awareness Week

On November 10, 2022, the Interdepartmental Conference dedicated to the World Antibiotic Awareness Week was successfully held at the Odesa National Medical University.

The conference was organized by the student scientific societies of the Department of Microbiology, Virology and Immunology, the Department of Infectious Diseases, the Department of Children’s Infectious Diseases and the Department of Therapy No. 1 with a course in cardiovascular pathology.

The opening speech was given to the head of the student scientific society of the department of microbiology, virology and immunology and the organizer of the conference Yevgeny Tarasov, who greeted the students and opened the conference.

Next, the main reports of the conference from specialists in the field of finding and developing new antibiotics were presented.

Mykola Shtenikov, Candidate of Biological Sciences, researcher at the Department of Microbiology, Virology and Biotechnology of Odesa National University named after I. I. Mechnikov spoke first with the report “Promising Antibiotics: Unusual Targets and Sources”. He considered the problems of modern attempts to find new drugs in the spaces of genomic information of uncultivated organisms and the hidden potential of known compounds.

The next speaker was Tetyana Brodyazhenko, a doctoral student at the University of Tartu (Estonia) with her work “Iboksamycin — development of a new antibiotic.” This study is devoted to the study of the effectiveness of the use of iboxamycin, a new semi-synthetic antibiotic that has great potential for use, including against human pathogens, against Listeria monocytogenes, the causative agent of listeriosis.

Next, the first block of reports began, in which students of scientific societies reported on the fundamentals of antibiotic therapy and antibiotic resistance.
After all the reports were completed, an antibiotic quiz was held, consisting of questions prepared by the students themselves based on their reports.

The closing speech was given to Yevhenii Vasyliovych Tarasov, who thanked the invited specialists and students for their participation and work done.

In total, more than 70 scientists attended the conference, it lasted more than 5 hours, but it was a very interesting and informative time, and everyone took away something useful for themselves.