The third Uppsala Antibiotic Days brings together 160 participants to address antimicrobial resistance

On 15–16 June, Uppsala University's Main Building hosted the third edition of Uppsala Antibiotic Days (UAD), a multidisciplinary conference on antimicrobial resistance organised by the Uppsala Antibiotic Center together with SciLifeLab, ENABLE-2, and Platinea. Over two days, researchers, clinicians, veterinarians, social scientists, and policy thinkers gathered to share work, challenge assumptions, and build the kind of cross-disciplinary networks that AMR needs.

The conference brought together 160 participants from Sweden and across the world, with 8 keynote speakers, 20 short talks, and 30 posters spanning social sciences, drug discovery, phage therapy, emergent pathogens, diagnostics, infection prevention, and One Health.

From history to hospital sewers, and much more in between

The programme opened with a keynote from Anne Kveim Lie, Professor at the University of Oslo, who situated antibiotic resistance within a long history of inequality, reminding us that the problem is as much political as it is biological. The session set a tone that held throughout the conference: AMR is not just a laboratory question.

That breadth was on full display across the two days, including additional keynote presentations by renowned experts in the field. Joakim Larsson, Director of the Centre for Antibiotic Resistance Research in Gothenburg, presented findings on resistance selection within hospital sewers. Martha Clokie, Director of the Becky Mayer Centre for Phage Research at the University of Leicester, outlined the path toward clinical bacteriophage therapy as a support to antibiotic therapy. Evelina Tacconelli, Professor of Infectious Diseases at the University of Verona, examined infection prevention and control as a cornerstone of the AMR response. Rafael Cantón, Head of Clinical Microbiology at Ramón y Cajal University Hospital in Madrid, addressed the transformation of clinical microbiology diagnostics. Scott Weese, from the University of Guelph, challenged common misconceptions about antimicrobial use in animals. Heinz Moser, a consultant with decades of experience in antibacterial drug discovery, walked us through the clinical development of plazomicin as a case study in what it takes to bring a new antibiotic to market. Tobias Spielmann, from the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine, presented his work on malaria parasite survival under artemisinin, an example of how resistance extends well beyond bacteria.

Twenty talks, thirty posters

Beyond the keynotes, 20 short talks and 30 posters filled the programme with work from early-career and established researchers alike. The topics ranged from molecular mechanisms of resistance and heteroresistance, to rapid diagnostics, antibiotic interaction testing, pharmacokinetic modelling, and infection prevention. Veterinary medicine and One Health featured prominently, as did the economics of drug development and the structural barriers that keep promising tools from reaching patients. Social science perspectives ran through several sessions, applied to topics such as stewardship, access, or the politics of the antibiotics system. The poster session on Monday afternoon drew sustained engagement, with work presented from institutions across Sweden and internationally, covering everything from phage-antibiotic combinations to wastewater surveillance and fungal resistance.

A recurrent event for a field in motion

UAD has taken place every two years since its first edition in November 2022. Each edition reflects where the field stands and where it is heading. "In 2024 we closed the UAD with a feeling that there were a lot of broken parts in the AMR field," said Linus Sandegren, Director of Uppsala Antibiotic Center and Professor at the Department of Medical Biochemistry and Microbiology. "Obviously, I wasn't expecting all of them to be fixed two years later, but I am happy to see that in 2026 we have been faced with a lot of new solutions and progress during this conference."

The next Uppsala Antibiotic Days conference is planned for the summer of 2028.