...At So Many Lev­els"

It is our plea­sure to con­tinue our tra­di­tion of host­ing a few re­flec­tions from the pres­i­dent of the ASM.

by Robin Pa­tel

I have been touched with the way ASM unites mi­cro­bi­ol­o­gists, el­e­vat­ing mi­cro­bi­ol­ogy for sci­en­tists and the com­mu­ni­ties in which we live. It has been an honor and a plea­sure to serve as ASM Presi­dent over the past year, a year which could rea­son­ably be con­sid­ered, the year every­one was a mi­cro­bi­ol­o­gist.

Fig­ure 1. Elio and me at ASM Mi­crobe in At­lanta. Source Robin Pa­tel

ASM and its mem­bers have been at the fore­front of ad­dressing the ef­fects of the COVID-19 pan­demic, work­ing to ad­vance the sci­ence to help hu­man­ity un­der­stand this virus which is wreak­ing havoc on our world. The ASM CO­VID-19 Re­source Page was launched at the end of Janua­ry, with con­tent cre­ated over the last five months hav­ing reached an amaz­ing half mil­lion users. In late March, the ASM Coun­cil on Mi­cro­bial Sci­ences con­vened more than one hun­dred ex­perts from around the world to dis­cuss ques­tions sur­round­ing di­ag­nos­tics, vac­cines and treat­ments for SARS-CoV‑2; I had the plea­sure of par­tic­i­pat­ing in this event. Just a few days fol­low­ing the Sum­mit, we pub­lished a pa­per in mBio sum­ma­riz­ing di­ag­nos­tics for COVID-19. Then, three weeks later, build­ing on a recom­men­dation from the Sum­mit, we launched the ASM COV­ID-19 Re­search Reg­istry. The reg­istry in­cludes top-ranked COVID-19 re­search cu­rated by ex­perts, span­ning from ba­sic vi­rol­ogy, to epi­demi­ol­ogy, to clin­i­cal di­ag­nos­tics and more. I am thank­ful to for­mer ASM Pres­i­dent Lynn En­quist for serv­ing as cu­ra­tor-in-chief, Harold Var­mus for serv­ing as chief con­sul­tant, and for the many oth­ers con­tribut­ing to this ef­fort to vet and in­ter­pret the rapidly emerg­ing sci­ence around SARS-CoV‑2. We held a press re­lease and a se­ries of three con­gres­sional brief­ings based on the Sum­mit, fo­cus­ing on COVID-19 di­ag­nos­tics, vac­cines and ther­a­peu­tics. As al­ways, dur­ing the pan­demic, ASM has taken on a promi­nent role as a con­vener, shar­ing sci­ence-based in­for­ma­tion with the press, ad­vo­cat­ing for sci­ence, pub­lic health and clin­i­cal con­cerns with pol­i­cy­mak­ers, and ed­u­cat­ing the pub­lic. Dur­ing the sec­ond half of my pres­i­dency, I reg­u­larly spoke to two to three re­porters a day. ASM has been men­tioned close to 7,200 times in me­dia sto­ries re­lated to COVID-19, and I have ap­par­ently been quoted in 1,560 news sto­ries this year, hav­ing been in­ter­viewed by re­porters from NPR, The Wash­ing­ton Post, As­so­ci­ated Press, TIME Mag­a­zine, The Guardian, Na­ture Re­search, Politico, NBC News, USA To­day, Fox News, Buzz­feed, Medium, Bus­tle, and oth­ers – don't ask me to re­call the de­tails, as it has been a whirl­wind! Be­cause I was an­swer­ing what seemed to be sim­i­lar ques­tions over and over, back in March, I recorded a Q&A an­swer­ing ques­tions about COVID-19, which has been viewed 23,000 times. And be­cause we are learn­ing more about this virus every day, I recorded an up­date at the end of June, just prior to the end of my pres­i­dency. I de­liv­ered a num­ber of we­bi­nars for non-mi­cro­bi­ol­o­gists, for ex­am­ple to the Pro­fes­sional Con­ven­tion Man­age­ment As­so­ci­a­tion, the Car­dio­vas­cu­lar Inno­va­tions Foun­da­tion, and even the Amer­i­can Med Spa As­so­ci­a­tion. The virus – and mi­cro­bi­ol­ogy – clearly touches every­one! I had reg­u­lar in­ter­ac­tions with var­i­ous gov­ern­ment agen­cies, in­clud­ing the Food and Drug Ad­min­is­tra­tion and the White House Task Force, to ad­vo­cate for our clin­i­cal mi­cro­bi­ol­o­gists re­gard­ing reg­u­la­tory, sup­ply chain and other COVID-19-re­lated is­sues fac­ing them in their amaz­ing ef­forts to test for this virus. While I an­tic­i­pated sup­ply chain is­sues re­lated to a pan­demic, the way sup­ply chain is­sues have played out has been be­yond ex­pec­ta­tions. For a quar­ter of a cen­tury, the Clin­Mi­croNet list­serv has been con­nect­ing clin­i­cal mi­cro­bi­ol­o­gists around the coun­try, and the world. Clin­Mi­croNet and Div C Net, two ASM com­mu­ni­ca­tions por­tals, have al­lowed mem­bers to share chal­lenges, so­lu­tions and ex­per­tise in real time, and have been invalu­able re­sources through­out this pan­demic as we learn about this virus day by day. I had the plea­sure of rep­re­sent­ing ASM, work­ing with IDSA to de­velop guide­lines for RNA test­ing for SARS-CoV‑2; we are de­vel­op­ing a sec­ond set of guide­lines on sero­logic test­ing as I write. ASM's CEO, Ste­fano Bertuzzi and I au­thored an op-ed that ran in the NY Times high­light­ing the work­force short­ages faced by clin­i­cal mi­cro­bi­ol­o­gists. Fi­nally, al­though I was dis­ap­pointed we were not able to be to­gether for ASM Mi­crobe in Chicago (Fig­ure 1), I am glad to have the op­por­tu­nity to gather dig­i­tally for ASM Mi­crobe On­line. The open­ing ses­sion, which fea­tured Drs. Ste­fano Bertuzzi, Deb­o­rah Birx and Pe­ter Hotez, was watched live by 1,800 peo­ple; if you missed it, you can watch it here. I hope you also had a chance to catch the President's Fo­rum, with Pro­fes­sors Karen Bush and Paul Ver­weij; it's also avail­able on­line if you didn't see it live it.

Fig­ure 2. Mile­stones in Mi­cro­bi­ol­ogy Ded­i­ca­tion at the Uni­ver­sity of Min­nesota. Source Robin Pa­tel

Dur­ing the first half of my pres­i­dency  – in pre-COVID-19 times – I learned about many ASM ac­tiv­i­ties I knew noth­ing about prior to the Pres­i­dency. For ex­am­ple, I hadn't heard of the Mile­stones in Mi­cro­bi­ol­ogy pro­gram. I'd like to share a lit­tle about this as I think it's fab­u­lous! The pro­gram rec­og­nizes sites that have made im­por­tant histo­ri­cal con­tri­bu­tions to the field of mi­cro­bi­ol­ogy. I had the honor of ded­i­cat­ing two new Mile­stones in Mi­cro­bi­ol­ogy sites, the Uni­ver­sity of Min­nesota and the Saranac Labo­ra­tory (which has been as­sim­i­lated into the Trudeau In­stitute). Mile­stones in Mi­cro­bi­ol­ogy des­ig­na­tions recog­nize sites where ground­break­ing ac­com­plish­ments have been made in mi­cro­bi­ol­ogy that have had fun­da­men­tal and last­ing ef­fects on the way we un­der­stand the micro­bial sci­ences. For more than a cen­tury, mi­cro­bial re­search has flour­ished at the Uni­ver­sity of Min­nesota, pro­duc­ing his­toric and far-reach­ing con­tri­bu­tions, in­clud­ing pi­o­neer­ing work on biofilms, sub­stan­ti­a­tion of the link be­tween Strep­to­coc­cus pyo­genes and rheumatic fever, and fun­da­men­tal re­search on the roles of T and B lym­pho­cytes in im­mune re­sponse, re­search that ul­ti­mately faci­li­tated the first suc­cess­ful al­lo­genic hu­man bone mar­row trans­plant (Fig­ure 2). The Saranac Labora­tory, founded in 1894 by Dr. Ed­ward Liv­ingston Trudeau, was the first fa­cil­ity in the United States built for tu­ber­cu­lo­sis re­search. Decades of re­search con­ducted there and at the Trudeau In­sti­tute led to the find­ing that both My­cobac­terium tu­ber­cu­lo­sis and the en­vi­ron­ment con­tribute to the de­vel­op­ment of tu­ber­cu­lo­sis – some­thing worth think­ing about in the con­text of COVID-19 (Fig­ure 3). Sig­nif­i­cant ad­vances were made in es­tab­lish­ing treat­ments for tu­ber­cu­lo­sis, most no­tably, es­tablishment of a sana­to­rium, which served as the model for hun­dreds of sana­to­ria through­out the United States and Canada. At both sites, the ded­i­ca­tion wasn't just for mi­cro­bi­ol­o­gists; in Minneso­ta, it in­cluded the Uni­ver­sity as a whole, and in Saranac Lake, it was es­pe­cially im­por­tant to the ge­neral pub­lic liv­ing there, many of whom didn't ap­pre­ci­ate the im­por­tance of the sci­ence that had hap­pened in their back­yard. Both sites have been of enor­mous im­por­tance for mi­cro­bi­ol­ogy; it was so won­der­ful to be able to help rec­og­nize them.

Fig­ure 3. Mile­stones in Mi­cro­bi­ol­ogy Ded­i­ca­tion at the Trudeau Insti­tute/Sar­anac Lab­o­ra­tory. Source Robin Pa­tel

I par­tic­i­pated in sev­eral ASM branch meet­ings, where I was im­pressed by the out­stand­ing sci­ence and shar­ing of knowl­edge and find­ings. I have a long­stand­ing in­ter­est in an­timi­cro­bial re­sis­tance, and was pleased to serve as an ASM rep­re­sen­ta­tive to the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion, dis­cussing an­timi­cro­bial re­sis­tance, and to pen an Op-ed ti­tled, "Why we need to start com­bat­ting an­timi­cro­bial re­sis­tance now." I was also thrilled to par­tic­i­pate in an event co­hosted by ASM in part­ner­ship with the Bill & Me­linda Gates Foun­da­tion, Well­come Trust, An­timi­cro­bial Re­sis­tance Fighter Coali­tion, and the CDC Foun­da­tion, to cel­e­brate the suc­cess of the An­timi­cro­bial Re­sis­tance (AMR) Chal­lenge called A Night Cel­e­brat­ing Global AMR Fight­ers (Fig­ure 4). This side event at the United Na­tions Gen­eral As­sem­bly was a multi-me­dia art ex­pe­ri­ence show­cas­ing how AMR is im­pacting our world, and fea­tur­ing ASM's award-win­ning agar art (which I love and had the plea­sure of judg­ing this year). ASM joined nearly 350 One Health com­mit­ments made by gov­ern­ments, non-gov­ern­ment or­ga­ni­za­tions and aca­d­e­mic and pri­vate sec­tor part­ners to take ac­tion and de­liver re­sults. Draw­ing at­ten­tion to the crit­i­cal is­sue of AMR didn't stop there – in Oc­to­ber, 2019, I partici­pated in a Con­gres­sional brief­ing that high­lighted ways to ad­dress AMR.
 

Fig­ure 4. An­timi­cro­bial Re­sis­tance Chal­lenge Event, A Night Cel­e­brat­ing Global AMR Fight­ers (me with Sec­re­tary of Hu­man and Health Ser­vices, Alex Azar, and ASM CEO, Dr. Ste­fano Bertuzzi) Source Robin Pa­tel

Fi­nally, when I ran for Pres­i­dent, a strong area of empha­sis of my plat­form was pro­mot­ing vol­un­teer opportuni­ties within ASM. Dur­ing my pres­i­dency, 450 vol­un­teers newly signed up for vol­un­teer op­por­tu­ni­ties with ASM – thank you to all for vol­un­teer­ing! ASM is your so­ci­ety; if you haven't vol­un­teered for ASM, I en­cour­age you to do so. I did, and it has been an amaz­ing and ful­fill­ing jour­ney, and a great way to serve sci­ence and hu­man­ity; thank you for giv­ing me this won­der­ful op­por­tu­nity!

 

Robin Pa­tel is the Eliz­a­beth P. and Robert E. Allen Pro­fes­sor of In­di­vid­u­al­ized Med­i­cine, Pro­fes­sor of Mi­cro­bi­ol­ogy and Pro­fes­sor of Med­i­cine, and Di­rec­tor of the In­fec­tious Dis­eases Re­search Lab­o­ra­tory at the Mayo Clinic. She served as ASM Pres­i­dent from July 2019 to June 2020.