Focus on Antimicrobial Resistance: Research and Recent Advances

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue will cover the selection of recent research topics and up-to-date review articles related to the current strategies to tackle antimicrobial resistance.

Public health is worldwide threatened by the phenomenon of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), and in particular, by the emergence of new multi-resistant bacterial strains. In 2019, nearly 5 million deaths were associated with drug-resistant infections. Indeed, AMR reduces the effectiveness of commercially available drugs and increases mortality rates. The main drivers of AMR include: misuse and overuse of antimicrobials in humans, animals and plants; poor infection prevention and control; limited availability of vaccines, diagnostics, and appropriate treatment.

The strategy to be adopted to prevent, reduce, and mitigate AMR should include a multi-sectoral approach, able to integrate preventive strategies (i.e., vaccines, diagnostic tools) with innovative and effective therapies (i.e., novel antibiotics, monoclonal antibodies, bacteriophages, microbiota).

To this aim, the Special Issue “Focus on Antimicrobial Resistance: research and recent advances” welcomes any contribution (Short communication; Full research paper; Mini-review; Full-length review paper) in the following research areas that tackle AMR from different perspectives:

• Potential targets for antimicrobial drug development;
• Novel antimicrobial leads;
• Next-generation vaccines against drug-resistant pathogens;
• Microbiota-based strategies to prevent infections;
• Diagnostic methods for molecular detection of resistance determinants;
• Use of surrogate organisms (i.e., Zebrafish, Caenorhabditis elegans, etc.) as simpler models to elucidate host–pathogen interactions;
• Omics technologies for the study of AMR;
• Computational analysis of host-pathogen interaction networks.

Submission of research articles related to drug-resistant “priority pathogens”—which pose the greatest threat to human health—is strongly encouraged.

Looking forward to receiving your contributions!

Dr. Laura Morelli
Dr. Giuseppe D'Orazio
Dr. Federica Compostella
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Biomedicines is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• bacterial pathogens
• fungal pathogens
• drug-resistant infections
• antimicrobial resistance
• antibiotic resistance
• novel antibiotics
• vaccines