Pew Charitable Trusts www.pewtrusts.org is in the process of creating a digital platform to allow researchers to share data, ideas, and insights. The hope is for the digital platform to be able to spur the discovery of innovative new antibiotics that are needed against the growing global threat of drug-resistant bacteria or superbugs.
“The world urgently needs new antibiotics, because infectious bacteria are developing resistance to antibiotics faster than we are developing new drugs that can defeat them,” said Allan Coukell, Senior Director of Health Programs for the Trust. “As tough-to-treat bacterial infections continue to emerge across the globe, the number of new antibiotics in development has stagnated.”
Despite a long history of antibiotic research, scientists find it difficult to build on past research findings, which are scattered across the academic literature or not publicly available. Also, the field has experienced a significant brain drain, losing years of experience as industry research and development teams have downsized or shifted to other therapeutic areas.
The new digital platform referred to as the “Shared Platform for Antibiotic Research and Knowledge” (SPARK) is a dynamic cloud-based resource that will be able to integrate research data with analysis by leading experts. SPARK will use technology developed by Collaborative Drug Discovery Inc., www.collaborativedrug.com a software company specializing in drug discovery informatics. SPARK is expected to launch within one year.
In the pilot phase, SPARK will focus on data relevant to the unique challenges of finding and designing antibiotics that can defeat drug-resistant Gram-negative bacteria, which are among the most dangerous and hardest-to-treat superbugs.
SPARK data will initially be curated from publicly available sources, but the platform will also have the capability to host and harmonize previously unpublished data and prospective research findings from studies still in progress.