Queensland University of Technology

ADHA seeks MHR interoperability enabler The Australian Digital Health Agency went to market recently to seek a provider of a FHIR server solution as part of efforts to modernise My Health Record (MHR). "The aim is to build the internal technical platform capabilities and infrastructure integrations to enable FHIR interoperability capability for the MHR," it said in a request for tender. The contract is estimated to be worth between A$45 million and A$50 million ($30 million-$33 million). The agency also wants its chosen partner to provide continuous FHIR interoperability support for future national digital health infrastructure components and systems. Since 2022, the ADHA has been working with HL7 Australia to promote the adoption of FHIR standards across the health system. WA on the look for EMR vendors Western Australia's Department of Health has also gone to market to seek organisations that will assist in deploying its statewide EMR platform. The state targets to have a fully functional EMR system by July 2029, as stated in the 10-year WA Health Digital Strategy. As described, the EMR is "both a medical record and a suite of capabilities that support clinical care and workflows across care settings." WA has invested around A$150 million ($100 million) so far in the EMR project. The project is currently in phase 1 , which involves the implementation of digital medical records with single sign-on technology and virtual desktop infrastructure across state public hospitals. Online atlas on children, youth health goes live An online atlas focused on children and youth wellbeing has been recently launched by the University of Western Australia. The Australian Child and Youth Wellbeing Atlas, which UWA claims to be the world's first, is a free mapping resource providing location-specific data on children and young people’s health and wellbeing indicators. "The atlas highlights key indicators across health, education, and social outcomes, giving policymakers, researchers, and community leaders the ability to make data-driven decisions," explained Rebecca Glauert, project lead and associate professor at UWA School of Population and Global Health. UWA developed the online tool with the Queensland University of Technology.

*仅供医学专业人士阅读参考 自从亚历山大·弗莱明发现青霉素之后，利用微生物天然抗菌能力的抗生素彻底改变了现代医学，抗生素成为治疗细菌感染的强大工具，在临床医学上得到广泛应用。 但也正因如此，抗生素的不当使用导致耐药的迅速发展，传统疗法逐渐难以满足治疗需要，我们迫切需要新的抗生素以及新的抗生素识别方法来进一步扩大已知抗菌剂库。 抗菌肽（AMPs）是指天然存在、能够抑制微生物生长的短链多肽（10-100个氨基酸残疾），可以通过破坏细菌细胞壁完整性来导致细胞裂解。大多数AMP具有广谱抗菌活性，且耐药性演变速度较慢。 近日，来自上海复旦大学、宾夕法尼亚大学以及昆士兰科技大学的研究团队在《细胞》杂志上发表了一项研究成果，他们利用机器学习在全球微生物组中，识别了近一百万种潜在的抗菌肽。对其中100种进行测试，确认了79种在体外具有活性，63种表现出对致病菌株的抑制效果。 研究人员利用机器学习技术，在公共数据库中计算分析了63410个公开宏基因组和87920个高质量微生物基因组，预测并编目了包含863498个非冗余候选抗菌肽序列的AMPSphere。经过计算和筛选的所有候选AMP可以通过https://ampsphere.big-data-biology.org/进行访问。 AMPSphere涉及到72种不同的栖息地，其中土壤/植物（36.6%）、水（24.8%）和人类肠道（13%）的比例最高。许多AMP源自碎片化的大蛋白质，并且在基因组中与保守基因相关，38.9%的候选AMP在不同基因组中具有同源物。 AMPSphere 研究人员测试了100种合成AMP对11种临床相关致病菌株的影响，包括鲍曼不动杆菌、大肠杆菌（包括一种耐粘菌素菌株）、肺炎克雷伯菌、铜绿假单胞菌、金黄色葡萄球菌（包括一种耐甲氧西林菌株）、耐万古霉素粪肠球菌和耐万古霉素屎肠球菌。 初步筛选显示，有63种AMP完全抑制了至少一种致病菌株的生长，甚至有些AMP在1μmol L-1的低浓度下仍然具有抗菌活性，抗菌活性与多粘菌素B和左氧佛沙星类似。鲍曼不动杆菌、大肠杆菌以及万古霉素耐药菌株粪肠球菌和屎肠球菌对AMP表现出更高的敏感性，分别有39、24、21和26种AMP对其表现出抑制活性。 AMP抗菌活性 但是，这些AMP在抑制致病菌的同时，似乎也没放过益生菌。研究人员筛选了58种AMP，与8种肠道微生物进行共同培养，发现有58%在低浓度下就能够抑制至少一种共生菌的生长。所有分析的肠道菌株至少对4种AMP表现出敏感性，其中嗜黏蛋白阿克曼菌、单形拟杆菌和普通拟杆菌表现出最高敏感性。共计有79种AMP表现出对致病菌或共生菌的抑菌活性。 AMP在小鼠中的抗感染活性 接下来，研究人员在小鼠皮肤脓肿感染模型中测试了AMP的抗感染功效。鲍曼不动杆菌会导致小鼠血液、肺部、泌尿系统等组织部位严重感染，有10种不同来源的AMP对鲍曼不动杆菌表现出强效抑制作用。以小鼠体重作为毒性指标，没有发现小鼠体重发生显著变化。 总的来说，研究使用机器学习识别了全球微生物组中近一百万个候选AMP，并初步展示了AMP的广谱抗菌作用。研究证实了人工智能在发现新抗生素领域的应用前景，为新抗生素的开发提供了有利帮助。 参考文献： https://www-cell-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(24)00522-1#%20 本文作者丨王雪宁

An international research team has found almost a million potential sources of antibiotics in the natural world. An international research team has found almost a million potential sources of antibiotics in the natural world. Research published in the journal Cell by a team including Queensland University of Technology (QUT) computational biologist Associate Professor Luis Pedro Coelho has used machine learning to identify 863,498 promising antimicrobial peptides -- small molecules that can kill or inhibit the growth of infectious microbes. The findings of the study come with a renewed global focus on combatting antimicrobial resistance (AMR) as humanity contends with the growing number of superbugs resistant to current drugs. "There is an urgent need for new methods for antibiotic discovery," Professor Coelho, a researcher at the QUT Centre for Microbiome Research, said. The centre studies the structure and function of microbial communities from around the globe. "It is one of the top public health threats, killing 1.27 million people each year." Without intervention, it is estimated that AMR could cause up to 10 million deaths per year by 2050. "Using artificial intelligence to understand and harness the power of the global microbiome will hopefully drive innovative research for better public health outcomes," he said. The team verified the machine predictions by testing 100 laboratory-made peptides against clinically significant pathogens. They found 79 disrupted bacterial membranes and 63 specifically targeted antibiotic-resistant bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli. "Moreover, some peptides helped to eliminate infections in mice; two in particular reduced bacteria by up to four orders of magnitude," Professor Coelho said. In a preclinical model, tested on infected mice, treatment with these peptides produced results similar to the effects of polymyxin B -- a commercially available antibiotic which is used to treat meningitis, pneumonia, sepsis and urinary tract infections. More than 60,000 metagenomes (a collection of genomes within a specific environment), which together contained the genetic makeup of over one million organisms, were analysed to get these results. They came from sources across the globe including marine and soil environments, and human and animal guts. The resulting AMPSphere -- a comprehensive database comprising these novel peptides -- has been published as a publicly available, open-access resource for new antibiotic discovery. Professor Coelho's research was conducted as part of his ARC Future Fellowship through the QUT School of Biomedical Science, in collaboration with the Cesar de la Fuente laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania, Fudan University, the European Molecular Biology Laboratory and APC Microbiome Ireland.