On September 28th and 29th, Riassa and I woke up early in order to virtually attend the AMR Insights International Masterclass hosted out of Amsterdam by Maarten Van Dongen. During the class, I had two major takeaways about the the larger AMR community. First that there was a high engagement from the more than one hundred attendants from around the globe. At the beginning of each day, the Masterclass participants proudly chimed into the chat box with their locations and affiliations. Beyond introductions, each presenter stayed online after their lecture to respond to the bevy of questions enthusiastically posed by participants. The generative discourse throughout both days made me excited to be in the room with such passionate leaders and individuals alike. My second takeaway from the event was that each lecture had a strong commitment to One Health. Most lectures referred to One Health directly as a key strategy to the success of combatting AMR.
I appreciated that throughout the series, noticeable care was put into the sequencing of each presentation. Day one focussed more on breaking down the basics of AMR with subjects like “How Does AMR Work” (taught by Van Dongen) and “Microbiome - Cause or Consequence” (taught by Marjorlein Klassen.) By day two, we had enough knowledge to go deep with specialists into topics like “Reducing Emissions In Water Waste” (taught by AMR Industries Alliance) and “Vaccines Against AMR” (taught by Bacti-Vac Network.) As a new member to NIAMRRE with limited prior knowledge of AMR, the presentations and discussions were incredibly valuable. They not only opened my mind to the severity of AMR to the planet’s inhabitants, but also to the dedicated research and science that will reduce and overcome that threat. Overall, the class answered a lot of questions I had about the subject of AMR and presented me with many more questions I look forward to finding answers for as I learn. I would recommend this course for anyone interested in getting a crash course directly from some of the world’s leading minds.