Panel discussion moderated by Rishi Chanderraj (second from left) with international members of the Antimicrobial Stewardship Centers of Excellence Alliance
3 December 2025
By Aideen Teeling
Enhancing all aspects of antimicrobial stewardship was the key takeaway from the fourth annual Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) Symposium, empowered by bioMérieux, which took place on November 18th and 19th, during World Antimicrobial Awareness Week (WAAW).
AMR is a rapidly growing global health threat which has the potential to break down standards of care in medicine and undermine agricultural practices in Canada, and experts believe that, if left unchecked, AMR will erode our tools to manage even the most common infections.
The Emerging & Pandemic Infections Consortium (EPIC) was proud to be the lead partner for the event, coordinating the abstract submission process to select podium and poster presenters and an AMR policymaking workshop for trainees.
The two-day hybrid event took place at The Quay in downtown Toronto. Bringing together over 300 clinicians, researchers, knowledge leaders, government policymakers and patients affected by AMR, the 2025 AMR symposium fostered discussions around the theme “Preserving Antimicrobial Effectiveness: Acting Today for Future Generations.”
The symposium began with addresses from Indigenous knowledge keeper Elder Steven Laforme and Chief Dennis Meeches, who both underscored that AMR is not only a medical challenge, but a community challenge. Both acknowledged the disproportionate impact of AMR on Indigenous communities and emphasized the importance of One Health approaches in combatting AMR.
Hudda Razzak and Rob Purdie built on these ideas by sharing their experiences as patients living with long-term drug-resistant infections. As someone with cystic fibrosis, Razzak spoke about the use of antibiotics to manage chronic lung infections. “I use antibiotics, not for cure, but for survival,” she said.
The symposium garnered recognition from ministers of health at both the federal and provincial levels, setting the stage for discussions on national action on AMR. The Public Health Agency of Canada discussed the recent findings from the Canadian AMR Surveillance System that compiled a list of top priority pathogens. Additionally, the Association of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Disease Canada highlighted the release of the new Canadian Antibiotic Treatment Guidelines App, which aims to put up-to-date recommendations in a physician’s pocket.
Jean-Pierre Nyemazi, acting interim director of the Quadripartite Joint Secretariat on AMR for the World Health Organization (WHO), also joined the symposium as a virtual speaker to highlight the importance of worldwide AMR tracking through the Global Antimicrobial Resistance and Use Surveillance System (GLASS), emphasizing that resistant pathogens are health and security threats that transcend borders.
Talks and panel discussions throughout the symposium focused on the promotion of antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) through multi-pronged strategies. Rishi Chanderraj, who was the keynote speaker at EPIC’s 2025 Microbiology and Infectious Disease Days, moderated a panel discussion with international members of the Antimicrobial Stewardship Centers of Excellence Alliance which focused on stewardship strategies across the Americas. Now that AMS initiatives in surgical and critical care have shown positive outcomes, the panelists recommended that health systems should focus on implementing initiatives beyond hospital doors and in community health settings such as primary care and family medicine.
Physicians from across Canada, the United States, and South America also offered their clinical perspectives on AMS initiatives. These talks highlighted stewardship strategies in different medical settings including surgery, intensive care units, emergency rooms and pediatric and primary care. The speakers painted a clear picture of how each of these settings has its unique challenges with different patient demands and standard care practices based on relative risk.
Three trainee talks, selected from submitted abstracts, profiled fundamental research to combat AMR. EPIC trainees Mahmood Gohari, Kirsten Meyer and Sara Fallah delivered impactful talks highlighting new ways to detect resistance genes with machine learning, how to leverage antimicrobial compounds which exist in nature against human pathogens, and repurposing old drugs to target new fungal foes.
The importance of public outreach and communication took centre stage with Simon Habegger’s presentation on “Do Bugs Need Drugs? A Guide to Wise Use”, a tool he created to encourage the public to be self-reflective about the use of antibiotics, and a live recording of The Canadian Breakpoint Podcast, hosted by Rupeena Purewal, with members of the National Sepsis Action Plan. The episode discussed the unique complications of treating sepsis and the implementation of early detection methods across all medical disciplines.
To further foster public engagement, EPIC announced the launch of the “Explain It Like I’m Six: An AMR Education Contest”. The contest invites undergraduate, graduate, medical, and veterinary students across Canada to submit a video or series of images to explain a concept related to AMR in a way that a six-year-old would understand.
A highlight for the EPIC community was the poster session that featured 50 posters with trainees from across Canada and showcased the innovative AMR research taking place, from surveillance to policymaking and from drug discovery to the biology of resistant pathogens. Raegan Allan from the University of Toronto took home the EPIC Poster Prize for her work on CRISPR-based AMR detection tools, and Eileen Bates from the University of Guelph was awarded the bioMérieux poster prize for her work using machine learning to discover new antifungal drugs.
In partnership with Canadian Antimicrobial Resistance Network (CAN-AMR-Net), EPIC also facilitated a trainee workshop on AMR policymaking which was hosted by the AMR Policy Accelerator, an arm of the Global Strategy Lab (GSL). This workshop, led by Kayla Strong, seeks to empower trainees to become future AMR policy leaders by working together to envision hypothetical policies around the real-world use of antibiotics — in this case, to prevent sexually transmitted infections — and how to continually use new evidence and ethical considerations to inform public health policy.
Strong, who is a research lead at the GSL, reflected on the benefit of collaborative workshops like this at the AMR symposium, “It helps future policymakers see AMR not only as a technical issue but as a shared governance challenge that requires thoughtful coordinated decisions across sectors.”
Funding support for the 2025 AMR Symposium was provided by bioMérieux Canada Inc and programing was developed in partnership with EPIC, the AMR One Health Consortium, the McGill AMR Centre, and CAN-AMR-Net.