In the era of antimicrobial resistance, infectious diseases are among the most significant causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide, with a lack of appropriate diagnosis and treatment being responsible for most poor outcomes. Diagnosis of infectious diseases often requires tissue isolation/swabbing coupled with longer culture times or molecular detection, which may take hours or even days to reveal an answer. As a result, clinicians often prescribe broad-spectrum antimicrobials without confirming causative agents of disease to reduce the possibility of invasive disease in patients. As a result, this precautionary overuse of antibiotics has resulted in the positive selection of multidrug-resistant genotypes that have compromised the effectiveness of traditional therapeutics. In has been estimated by the World Health Organization (WHO) that by 2050, more deaths will arise because of antimicrobial resistance, than cancer, demonstrating the urgent need for innovative therapeutic strategies. In response to this global healthcare threat , the United States government declared the ”National Action for Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria, 2020-2025” which described the importance of developing novel diagnostics and therapeutics which an emphasis on how these tools are essential to combat the influx of multidrug-resistant microorganisms. Similarly, in 2017, the G20 heads of state and governments created a collaboration platform, named the Global Antimicrobial Resistance Research and Development Hub, or Global AMR R&D Hub.
In response to the need to combat antimicrobial resistance, innovative, non-antibiotic techniques that are photonics based (light-based) are emerging as a strategy to increase the efficiency of diagnosis and therapeutic methods. With the use of Raman and Infrared Spectroscopy, Plasmonics, and other photonics-based diagnostic approaches, the window between diagnosis and treatment may be shortened to provide patients with a more accurate and timely treatment regimen, which in turn will undoubtedly save lives. Furthermore, photonic methods have been shown to been promising for the treatment of infectious diseases. Examples include, antimicrobial photodynamic therapy, antimicrobial blue light, ultraviolet C radiation, light-based vaccination, etc. What is of particular importance is that these technologies can, eradiate microbial pathogens irrespective of antimicrobial resistance status, can kill microbes rapidly and non-invasively, and it has been suggested by the literature that resistance development to photonic approaches are unlikely.
This research topic based on the conference,
Photonic Diagnosis, Monitoring, Prevention, and Treatment of Infections and Inflammatory Diseases 2022 emphasizes the photonic diagnostic and therapeutic techniques for infections and inflammatory diseases. Technical and scientific papers related to advanced photonic diagnostic, monitoring, prevention, and therapeutic technologies that push beyond the scope of the state-of-the-art in basic science and clinical practice are solicited.