Turning the tide of antimicrobial resistance | Fredrik Almqvist | TEDxUmeå

Due to the spread of genes contributing to antibiotic resistance, the world is rapidly approaching the post-antibiotic era, complicating simple surgery and cancer treatments. Although it is estimated that 700,000 people die every year of bacteria that are resistant to one or several antibiotics, only a few truly new antibiotics have been introduced to the market during the last decades. Hans Rosling also stressed the need for new alternatives to combat antibiotic resistance bacteria and claimed this problem to be equal or even tougher than global climate change. I will highlight some new promising approaches to tackle this global challenge. I’m a Professor in Organic Chemistry at the Department of Chemistry at Umeå University. After earning a PhD at Lund University and a postdoctoral stay at Washington University in St. Louis, I returned to Umeå University where I have established a research group with a common overall goal to understand bacterial pathogenesis and develop new ways to combat antimicrobial resistance. In order to improve our chances of reaching our goals, we have been fortunate to collaborate with renowned researchers with complementary expertise in areas such as molecular biology, clinical microbiology, structural biology and biophysics. In addition to being a scientist and lecturer at the University, I’m also an entrepreneur and have founded two companies – SpinChem AB and QureTech Bio AB. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx