��ֱ����

Antibiotics are considered one of the great medical discoveries of the 20^th century. Since antibiotics became widely available in 1945, they have been used to keep infectious diseases such as cholera and diphtheria under control as well as treating more common ailments such as pneumonia.

Life expectancies increased, and the leading causes of death in the United States changed from communicable diseases to noncommunicable diseases.

But what happens when the magic bullet is no longer effective? Antimicrobial resistance is increasingly becoming a greater problem. According to some science publications, antimicrobial resistance is developing into a silent pandemic, and it could surpass other causes of mortality by 2050.

That is what keeps Warren Rose hard at work in his University of Wisconsin-Madison lab. He is an associate professor in the university’s School of Pharmacy and was named the Young Investigator of the Year by the Society of Infectious Diseases.

He will talk about his work to combat the antimicrobial resistance crisis at the 12^th annual Francis Miller Lecture at the spring pharmacy convocation at South ��ֱ���� State University. Rose will present “Antimicrobial Pharmacology: From Bedside to Bench to Clinic” at 5 p.m. Tuesday, April 1, in Founders Recital Hall in the Oscar Larson Performing Arts Center.

“My research is informed from patient experiences I see in the clinical setting,” said Rose, who also has a clinical appointments at the Department of Pharmacy at UW Health.

“We aim to understand basic mechanisms of these outcomes in the laboratory bench in order to translate them to clinical pathways that can be used in a broader patient populations. Our research identifies unique antibiotic resistance mechanisms and provides strategies for improved detection and treatment,” Rose said.

For example, his lab is studying the mechanisms of a Staphylococcus aureus bacteria which is associated with sepsis and has become increasingly resistant to standard antibiotics. 

Rose said, “To combat the antimicrobial resistance crisis, innovative approaches are needed in both drug discovery and development and rediscovery of existing antimicrobials to optimize their use.”

The Francis Miller Lecture is funded through an endowment that came into being after the death of Miller’s daughter in 2009. Miller was a longtime pharmacist and drugstore owner who died in 1987. He was grateful for the short courses offered by the SDSU College of Pharmacy that he took while operating pharmacies in Gettysburg, his hometown, Redfield and Huron.

For more information on the lecture, contact Kyle Laporte, associate professor of pharmacy practice at SDSU and a clinical pharmacist at Avera Cancer Institute, at kyle.laporte@avera.org.