Detection and Characterization of Drug-Resistant Organisms

Dear Colleagues,

In this era, several nations are facing the scourge of more than one pathogen. This situation has raised significant awareness, and more efforts are being given to find the treatment of infectious diseases, primarily caused by bacteria, parasites, and viruses. Several drugs and derivatives are being discovered that have a range of effects against pathogens. Despite reasonable success in disease prognosis and in resolving the issue, development of resistant forms of these pathogens has been a setback. There are multiple levels of resistance, namely: multi-drug resistant (MDR), extremely drug resistant (XDR), and, in some cases, totally drug resistant (TDR) strains of the pathogens have also evolved. These include bacterial diseases, such as tuberculosis, pneumonia, and gonorrhea; viral diseases, such as HIV; and parasitic diseases, such as Lyme disease and malaria. Besides resistance, pathogens also exhibit persistence or tolerance to the drugs, without actually mutating. This Special Issue, entitled “Detection and Characterization of Antibiotic Resistant Organisms”, focuses on the concepts of resistance, persistence, and tolerance in human pathogens and their detection, characterization, and treatment. This Special Issue emphasizes the escalating problem of drug-resistance in pathogens, and supplements the existing literature on several diseases.

In this Issue, the discussion is open to a range of topics, including the following:

• Manuscripts can be focused on the reasons behind the development of drug-resistance: (a) variations at a pathogen level, including mutations, molecular alterations, gene expression, post-translational modifications, evolution, dormancy, and persistence; (b) host level variations, such as level of infection, immune response, microbiome, compliance, and side-effects; and (c) drug designing, substrates of efflux-pumps, pharmacokinetics, activation, chemical properties, drug-targets, etc.
• Detection of drug resistant organisms: the detection of drug resistant strains of the pathogens has been a major obstacle for all diseases. The diagnosis of a disease and its treatment with appropriate drugs can only be achieved once the pathogen’s sensitivity level has been defined. With this background, we will discuss the small-scale and high-throughput screening of the patient samples, which will help in detection.
• Unfortunately, a large number of infections now exhibit resistance to one or more drugs, and need to be treated after careful diagnosis. The extent of the problem can be understood from the emergence of infections that are untreatable with the currently available regimen. In view of this, there will be discussions on the characterization of drug resistant organisms and strategies to combat and resolve the drug resistance. This can extend from the prevention to the treatment of infections.
• Other topics that are not mentioned here but are still relevant to the broad topic of this Special Issue are also welcome.

Dr. Andaleeb Sajid
Dr. Gunjan Arora
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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