AMR Data Challenge: Molecular epidemiology of beta-lactamase producing pathogens in Sub-Saharan Africa

We are writing to express our interest in the AMR Data challenge to unravel solutions to the burden of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), especially in Sub-Saharan Africa through molecular epidemiology. Molecular epidemiology has emerged as an innovative, highly precise and accurate surveillance approach to track the occurrence and spread of resistant pathogens at the genomic level. This will shed light on the genetic and structural evolution of beta-lactamase in pathogens of public health concern, hence guiding the development of contextualized interventions to curb them. Beta-lactamases are enzymes that confer antibiotic resistance by digesting the beta-lactam antibiotics, rendering them ineffective. This has been highly attributable to antibiotic-resistant gram-negative bacteria, which have significantly impacted public health security. Several studies indicate that SSA is the most highly hit region by antibiotic resistance due to a myriad of challenges such as inadequate surveillance and monitoring. This study will generate more data that will support clinical and epidemiological decision-making as well as the formulation and implementation of relevant policies. The main goal of this study is to identify the most prevalent beta-lactamase-producing pathogens in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), and devise innovative and effective strategies to combat them. The study also intends to establish the commonest biomarker(s) and their expression pathways in beta-lactamase-producing bacteria prevalent in SSA, which will support research and development of multi-strain vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics. This study will utilize the data in the antibiotics and pathogens ATLAS database from Pfizer in combination with additional genomic pathogen datasets from the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI). An artificial intelligence-assisted bioinformatics pipeline will be developed to analyze the data and interpret the findings. We believe that our study will generate useful insights for the understanding and mitigation of beta-lactamase-positive pathogens in SSA and beyond.