Methicillin Resistance in Staphylococcus pseudintermedius

Staphylococcus pseudintermedius affecting dogs is analogous to S. aureus on humans, acting as both normal flora and opportunistic pathogen. Methicillin resistance in S. pseudintermedius is recent, with the first documented occurrence of an isolate bearing the methicillin resistance gene, mecA, in 1999. This gene encodes penicillin binding protein 2a, which renders all beta-lactam drugs ineffective and functions as a “gateway” antibiotic resistance determinant. In the presence of ineffective antibiotics, opportunities for mutational events and acquisition of mobile genetic elements increase as microbial densities increase, often leading to multi-drug resistance. Methicillin-resistant S. pseudintermedius (MRSP) infections have become increasingly common. For example, approximately 30% of the S. pseudintermedius isolates tested by the University of Tennessee College of Veterinary Medicine Clinical Bacteriology Laboratory are resistant to methicillin. An increasing number of MRSP isolates are also resistant to most clinically useful antibiotics available to veterinarians except for chloramphenicol, and resistance to this antibiotic is common among European MRSP isolates. Chloramphenicol resistance has begun to appear in the US and if this trend continues there may soon be few viable antibiotic treatment options. Compared with the arrival of methicillin-resistant S. aureus in the 1960s, the opportunity currently exists to apply advanced molecular methods early in this recognized emergence of MRSP. To that end I have pursued projects utilizing multilocus sequence typing, pulsed-field electrophoresis, and SCCmec characterization of both susceptible and resistant S. pseudintermedius. The initial result was the detection of a clonal population of MRSP in the southeastern United States. Further characterization of this and other clonal lineages using genomic sequencing and real-time RT-PCR expression analysis of antibiotic resistance and quorum sensing genes revealed a marked difference in the regulation of antibiotic resistance between regional clones. These discoveries have interesting epidemiological implications and provide a foundation for the development of novel therapeutics to circumvent the expanding antibiotic resistance repertoire of MRSP. Potential targets identified by this work include membrane-bound beta-lactamase receptors responsible for the regulation of mecA, non-cognate auto-inducing peptides, and synthetic antisense oligonucleotides

Intellectual property rights in a knowledge-based economy

Intellectual property rights (IPR) have been created as economic mechanisms to facilitate ongoing innovation by granting inventors a temporary monopoly in return for disclosure of technical know-how. Since the beginning of 1980s, IPR have come under scrutiny as new technological paradigms appeared with the emergence of knowledge-based industries. Knowledge-based products are intangible, non-excludable and non-rivalrous goods. Consequently, it is difficult for their creators to control their dissemination and use. In particular, many information goods are based on network externalities and on the creation of market standards. At the same time, information technologies are generic in the sense of being useful in many places in the economy. Hence, policy makers often define current IPR regimes in the context of new technologies as both over- and under-protective. They are over-protective in the sense that they prevent the dissemination of information which has a very high social value; they are under-protective in the sense that they do not provide strong control over the appropriation of rents from their invention and thus may not provide strong incentives to innovate. During the 1980s, attempts to assess the role of IPR in the process of technological learning have found that even though firms in high-tech sectors do use patents as part of their strategy for intellectual property protection, the reliance of these sectors on patents as an information source for innovation is lower than in traditional industries. Intellectual property rights are based mainly on patents for technical inventions and on copyrights for artistic works. Patents are granted only if inventions display minimal levels of utility, novelty and non-obviousness of technical know-how. By contrast, copyrights protect only final works and their derivatives, but guarantee protection for longer periods, according to the Berne Convention. Licensing is a legal aid that allows the use of patented technology by other firms, in return for royalty fees paid to the inventor. Licensing can be contracted on an exclusive or non-exclusive basis, but in most countries patented knowledge can be exclusively held by its inventors, as legal provisions for compulsory licensing of technologies do not exist. The fair use doctrine aims to prevent formation of perfect monopolies over technological fields and copyrighted artefacts as a result of IPR application. Hence, the use of patented and copyrighted works is permissible in academic research, education and the development of technologies that are complimentary to core technologies. Trade secrecy is meant to prevent inadvertent technology transfer to rival firms and is based on contracts between companies and employees. However, as trade secrets prohibit transfer of knowledge within industries, regulators have attempted to foster disclosure of technical know-how by institutional means of patents, copyrights and sui-generis laws. And indeed, following the provisions formed by IPR regulation, firms have shifted from methods of trade secrecy towards patenting strategies to achieve improved protection of intellectual property, as well as means to acquire competitive advantages in the market by monopolization of technological advances.economics of technology ;