[Video]

Zou Quanming

Professor at the Third Military Medical University

On November 10, the 2019 China-Japan Advanced Medical and New Drug R&D Summit and Achievements Transformation Conference was held in Chengdu. Medical experts, scientists, entrepreneurs and investors from both China and Japan presented and shared their latest achievements. As a guest speaker, Zou Quanming, a professor at the Third Military Medical University of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, expressed deep concerns about antimicrobial resistance in bacteria.

"Because of the large number of antibiotics we have used and their prevalent abuse, China is already one of the areas plagued by super bacteria,” said Zou Quanming, “antimicrobial resistance in bacteria has become a worldwide problem.”

He pointed out that the "super bacteria" currently faced by humans are mainly Staphylococcus aureus, Acinetobacter baumannii, Klebsiella pneumoniae, etc. Most antibiotics do not work on these "super bacteria". According to a report of the World Health Organization, "if humans cannot contain the epidemic of super bacteria by 2050, tens of millions of people will die from infections every year!"

Zou Quanming started vaccine research more than 30 years ago, hoping to fundamentally prevent and control bacteria. With unremitting efforts, he successfully developed the world's first "Helicobacter pylori vaccine". Since then, he has set his sights on dealing with "super bacteria". He and his team initiated the earliest research on five super bacterial vaccines in China. Among them, China’s first super bacterial vaccine, Staphylococcus aureus vaccine, jointly developed with Chengdu Olymvax Biopharmaceuticals, has made major phased achievement and is in Phase II human clinical trial.