A protocol for a living mapping review of global research funding for infectious diseases with a pandemic potential - Pandemic PACT.

The COVID CIRCLE initiative Research Project Tracker by UKCDR and GloPID-R and associated living mapping review (LMR) showed the importance of sharing and analysing data on research at the point of funding to improve coordination during a pandemic. This approach can also help with research preparedness for outbreaks and hence our new programme the Pandemic Preparedness: Analytical Capacity and Funding Tracking Programme (Pandemic PACT) has been established. The LMR described in this protocol builds on the previous UKCDR and GloPID-R COVID-19 Research Project database with addition of the priority diseases from the WHO Blueprint list plus initial additions of pandemic influenza, mpox and plague.

Biofilms and microbiome profiles in chronic wounds: links to antibiotic use and wound severity in a Sri Lankan cohort.

Aims: We have characterized the microbiome of infected chronic diabetic wounds (CDWs), exploring associations with antibiotic use and wound severity in a Sri Lankan cohort.

Methods And Results: Fifty CDW patients were enrolled, 38 of whom received antibiotics. Tissue biopsies were analysed by microbiome profiling, and wounds were graded using the University of Texas Wound Grading System.

Investigations of microbial adaptation to singular, binary, and fully formulated quaternary ammonium compounds.

The study was conducted to inform risk assessments concerning microbial exposure to quaternary ammonium biocides (QUATs) by investigating their effects on 10 microbial strains of hygiene relevance. Biocides were divided into three categories: simple aqueous solutions, biocide mixtures, and formulated biocides. Organisms were grown in the presence of biocides for 10 generations and then subsequently for another 10 generations in biocide-free media.

Data challenges for international health emergencies: lessons learned from ten international COVID-19 driver projects.

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of international data sharing and access to improve health outcomes for all. The International COVID-19 Data Alliance (ICODA) programme enabled 12 exemplar or driver projects to use existing health-related data to address major research questions relating to the pandemic, and developed data science approaches that helped each research team to overcome challenges, accelerate the data research cycle, and produce rapid insights and outputs. These approaches also sought to address inequity in data access and use, test approaches to ethical health data use, and make summary datasets and outputs accessible to a wider group of researchers.