On Wednesday we had the great pleasure to welcome The Honourable Cameron Dick, Queensland's Health Minister, Mr Matthew Ames, antibiotic awareness advocate, and Professor Peter Høj, The University of Queensland's Vice Chancellor and President. They have opened the brand new CO-ADD antimicrobial screening lab with program director Professor Matt Cooper. The visit was covered by ABC News: New antibiotics needed to fight drug-resistant superbugs, Queensland researchers warn, By Leonie Mellor.

Superbugs are invading hospitals and threaten to return society to a pre-antibiotic period where even simple infections caused death. Leading the charge is Professor Matt Cooper from UQ's Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB) and CO-ADD program director: "We want to work together as a community, find better antibiotics and we need to start to look at diagnostics seriously."
CO-ADD is calling on scientists to send their compounds to IMB for free testing against superbugs and to ensure they are not also harmful to human cells.
"We're really finding the first starting point. What's that compound? How does it work?" he said.
"How can we then build on that and work that into a compound that can be used by doctors to save lives.
Queensland Health Minister Cameron Dick said the program — Community for Open Antimicrobial Drug Discovery (CO-ADD) — would have an impact not just in Australia but around the world.
"It's very sobering to think that the WHO regards superbugs as the greatest threat to human health, so the world-class research that's being done here will have the benefit hopefully to save lives around the world." he said.
> Read the ABC full article here