Collaboration gives scientists on-demand access to global superbug data

McMaster University is working with the infectious disease team at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) to improve access to antimicrobial resistance (AMR) data, so scientists across the world can better prevent global health threats.

Leveraging McMaster’s Comprehensive Antibiotic Resistance Database (CARD), the CZI has developed an AMR module for its open-access metagenomics platform, CZ ID. The new module allows for researchers from all over the world to track and investigate drug-resistant bacteria — or superbugs — on demand.

Developed at McMaster by Andrew McArthur and Gerry Wright, professors in the Department of Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences and members of the Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research, CARD is a rigorously curated bioinformatics database that contains the world’s knowledge of antimicrobial resistance genes.