Urinary tract infections are a significant socioeconomic burden afflicting 150 million patients worldwide each year, most of whom are healthy adult women. The high rate of antibiotic usage to treat acute and recurrent episodes of urinary tract infection has led to a dramatic increase in the number of infections caused by antibiotic resistant bacteria including extended spectrum beta- lactam producing strains. The decrease in availability of efficacious antibiotic therapies has elevated the need to accelerate all aspects of UTI research as outlined in our programmatic topic areas. This conference goes beyond the exchange of basic science findings and strive for a clinical relevance of research findings as they can be applied to clinical practice as well as using clinical challenges to foster new collaborations and experimental approaches. Although healthy women represent the majority of patients treated for urinary tract infection, we will target previously under investigated areas such as sex and age differences, susceptibility factors and negative sequelae. Further, this conference provides clinicians across specialties (such as pediatrics, geriatrics, obstetrics, complex care, emergency medicine, urology, and nephrology) the opportunity to brainstorm treatment approaches with each other and to communicate their needs for research directly to researchers, informing future lines of scientific inquiry. By focusing holistically on the disease of UTI rather than on any one research or clinical approach, discussions and collaborations can cross from the bench to the bedside. As part of a long-term plan for preventing and managing UTI, we also have a training mission to recruit and support early career researchers and those not traditionally represented in medicine and research as they transition into the next generations of experts.
The conference will bring together medical professionals, biomedical scientists, government agencies, and industrial partners with a common mission to eradicate the disease, broadly defined, of urinary tract infections. This includes the specific manifestations of infection in different patient populations and their sequelae, for the discovery of new diagnostic, therapeutic, and preventative approaches. As part of a long-term plan for managing urinary tract infection, we also have a training mission to recruit and support early career researchers as they transition into the next generations of experts.
