McMaster University prof among winners of $100,000 prize for Canada’s top researchers
Getting food poisoning while travelling overseas gave an internationally renowned Canadian scientist some harrowing insights into antimicrobial resistance, the very topic that his decades of related research have now earned him a $100,000 Killam Prize.
Gerry Wright, a professor at Hamilton’s McMaster University, was one of five scholars announced Tuesday to each receive the cash award for outstanding contributions in their respective fields of health sciences, engineering, humanities, natural sciences and social sciences.
Wright was recognized for his expertise in bacteria and viruses evolving in ways that make antibiotics less effective in treating infections, and for co-founding an advanced course on antibiotic resistance at a facility in France for researchers, clinicians and policymakers.
Antimicrobial resistance is increasingly becoming a major threat to public health, he said in an interview, recounting his own experience with a salmonella infection a decade ago on a trip to Europe, where he was prescribed an antibiotic that did not work.
“The salmonella got into my bloodstream, which is not common,” Wright said. “The first antibiotic that I was given should have cleared up the infection in a couple of days, and it didn’t.”
Wright was hospitalized and given a second antibiotic intravenously to overcome the infection.
“I do know what it’s like to be lying in bed and thinking, ‘This should not be happening’ because I grew up with antibiotics, like everybody did. So, it’s personal.”
Besides natural evolution, microbes have become resistant to medications due to overuse and not being taken for the full course of treatment as prescribed, allowing stronger bacteria to survive and spread so that “we’re losing our grip” on the progress made in treating infections, Wright said.
“Antibiotics have, in the past, worked so incredibly well that we completely take that for granted,” Wright said.
“The human race won’t be wiped out, but we’ll just go back to where infection is a leading cause of death after we gained over 20 years of life expectancy since of the beginning of the 20th century.”
Other Killam Prize winners this year are Clément Gosselin and Sylvain Moineau, both of Université Laval, for their work in engineering and natural sciences, respectively; Janine Marchessault of York University for her work in media and art activism; and University of Toronto anthropology professor Tania Li for her contributions to social sciences.
The National Research Council of Canada made the announcement Tuesday on behalf of the Dorothy J. Killam trust, which has provided more than $1 billion to distinguished scholars since 1981.