‘Alarming’ rise in newborn babies with antibiotic-resistant infections, researchers find

Sydney researchers urge for new testing and treatment guidelines and fast-tracked drug development.

University of Sydney

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Researchers are calling for an urgent overhaul of diagnostic and treatment guidelines for infections in newborn babies, after a University of Sydney-led study revealed frontline treatments for sepsis are no longer effective to treat the majority of bacterial infections. 

 

The study, published in The Lancet Regional Health – Western Pacific, analysed almost 15,000 blood samples collected from sick babies in 2019 and 2020 at 10 hospitals across five countries in Southeast Asia, including Indonesia and the Philippines. 

 

It found that most infections were caused by bacteria unlikely to respond to the currently applied WHO recommended treatments. These were developed using data from high-income countries, instead of using localised data which could be more accurate and therefore effective. 

 

“Our study highlights the causes of serious infections in babies in countries across Southeast Asia with high rates of neonatal sepsis, and reveals an alarming burden of AMR that renders many currently available therapies ineffective for newborns,” said senior author Associate Professor Phoebe Williams, a Senior Lecturer and NHMRC Fellow in the Sydney School of Public Health.

 

“Guidelines must be updated to reflect local bacterial profiles and known resistance patterns. Otherwise, mortality rates are only going to keep climbing.”

 

The problem is further compounded by a lack of new antimicrobial medications in development for infants and babies, added co-author Michelle Harrison, PhD candidate and Project Coordinator of NeoSEAP in the Sydney School of Public Health. 

 

“It takes about 10 years for a new antibiotic to be trialled and approved for babies,” Harrison said.

 

“With so few new drug candidates in the first place, we need a significant investment in antibiotic development.”

 

WHY THE TYPE OF ‘BUG’ MATTERS

 

For the samples which tested positive for fungal or bacterial infections, the team analysed whether they were caused by gram-positive or gram-negative bacteria – referring to the structure of the bacteria’s cell wall which influences how likely it is to develop and acquire antibiotic resistance. 

 

Gram negative bacteria like E. coli, Klebsiella and Acinetobacter were responsible for nearly 80 percent of infections and are more likely to develop (and spread) antibiotic resistance. 

 

“These bugs have long been considered to only cause infections in older babies, but are now infecting babies in their first days of life,” said Associate Professor Williams. 

 

When treating babies, doctors don’t have time to wait for lab tests to confirm the exact cause of the infection, and often make an educated guess from published data, most often based on high-income populations, to guide treatment. These tests are also frequently delayed or falsely negative due to the difficulty of collecting blood samples.

 

Harrison explained that the findings showcase the importance of locally relevant data to guide routine medical decision-making.

 

“We need more region-specific surveillance to guide treatment decisions. Otherwise, we risk reversing decades of progress in reducing child mortality rates,” she said.

    

“Our results also revealed fungal infections caused nearly one in 10 serious infections in babies – a much higher rate than in high-income countries. 

 

“We need to ensure doctors are prescribing treatments that have the best chance at saving a baby’s life.”

 

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR AUSTRALIA?

 

While this study didn’t involve cases from Australia, the authors note that these findings highlight the growing threat of AMR globally.

 

“Antibiotic resistance spreads across borders,” said Associate Professor Williams. “Thankfully in Australia we have robust data on infections, which will continue to play an important role in monitoring the appropriateness of our first-line therapies to treat serious infections as antibacterial resistance unfolds.

 

“We’re currently evaluating infection data across NSW hospitals to ensure our treatment strategies remain effective.”

 

Harrison added: “Australia’s close ties to Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific mean we must stay vigilant and proactive in updating guidelines and developing new treatments in the face of these alarming findings.”

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Journal

The Lancet Regional Health - Western Pacific

DOI

10.1016/j.lanwpc.2025.101617 

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Pathogen distribution and antimicrobial resistance among neonatal bloodstream infections in Southeast Asia: results from NeoSEAP, a multicentre retrospective study

Article Publication Date

29-Sep-2025

COI Statement

This study was supported by an Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) grant. The NHMRC was not involved in the design, conduct, analysis or reporting of the research. The authors declare no competing interests.

Cambridge scientist uncovers cunning way to double the sales of the famous Greggs Vegan Sausage Roll – and in an open letter, shares the technique with key people at Greggs


Cambridge research finds unique nudge approach that significantly outperforms carbon labelling for increasing sustainable food consumption

Lucy Cavendish College, University of Cambridge

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image: 

Open letter to Greggs sent by Dr Chris Macdonald, Director of the Better Protein Institute.

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Credit: Better Protein Institute

UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE, UK – New research published in Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems reveals a highly effective new strategy to increase low-emission food consumption.

The study, led by Cambridge scientist and Director of the Better Protein Institute, Dr Chris Macdonald, demonstrates that his "nudge by proxy" approach, which calls attention to consumer motivations rather than environmental impacts, more than doubled the selection of meat-free meals in controlled choice experiments with 3,000 participants. This approach proved significantly more effective than traditional carbon footprint labelling.

Dr Macdonald explains, “People often think that their own beliefs and values are more common than they actually are. This is called the false consensus effect. Accordingly, researchers who are also environmentalists might tend towards interventions that highlight negative environmental impacts because it is what influences them, and they may assume that it will be equally persuasive to the average consumer. I call this the environmentalist bias. To avoid this potential bias, prior to designing a new label intervention, I engage directly with consumers.”

The research began with 1,500 consumers who identified protein as the most significant perceived barrier to adopting a meat-free diet. This "insufficiency illusion"—the false belief that meat-free options must lack essential nutrients—emerged as a key insight and informed the creation of a simple protein label. Shocking as it may be to consumers, not only does the Greggs Vegan Sausage Roll come with fewer greenhouse gas emissions and lower fat content, but it also comes with more protein than its meat-based counterpart (this is also the case for their breakfast roll range).

Dr Macdonald notes, "By simply highlighting the protein content, we were able to shift an unprecedented number of consumers towards meat-free choices. As noted in the paper, in the second experiment, the meat-free meal choice was selected by less than a quarter of the participants in the control group and by over half of the participants in the protein label group—a finding consistent for men and women. This increase of more than 100% made the selection of the meat-free item the majority decision and thus marked an unprecedented step-change.”

Dr Macdonald sent the results to Greggs; he published an open letter on social media and sent letters directly to key stakeholders:
• Roisin Currie – CEO
• Paul Irwin-Rhodes – Head of Sustainability
• Hannah Squirrell – Customer & Marketing Director
• Sarah Graham – Product Development & Innovation
• Fiona Mills – Brand Communications & Creative Lead
• Ian White – Head of Brand and Communications

Dr Chris Macdonald says, “At the Better Protein Institute, we are committed to turning research into tangible impact. In service of this, I have shared the results with Greggs, and I have also offered to collaborate with them, and they have my contact information. They have a unique opportunity to not only increase sales but also cement themselves as leaders in sustainability. The ball is in their court now.”

Dr Macdonald concludes, “A rising tide of global meat consumption fuels an increasingly dangerous narrative: that changing consumption habits is simply too difficult. My work provides a defiant counter-narrative. With a data-driven approach, I continue to uncover new approaches that significantly outperform popular interventions. The secret is simple: returning to first principles, engaging with the consumer, and not acquiescing to external pessimism. Data-driven, defiant optimism in action."
 

About Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems:
Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems is a leading journal dedicated to publishing high-quality research on all aspects of sustainable food production, distribution, and consumption.

Link to paper:
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/sustainable-food-systems/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2025.1656336/full

About the author:
Dr Chris Macdonald is a behavioural scientist, founder, and author. Dr Macdonald is a Fellow and Lab Director at Lucy Cavendish College, University of Cambridge; a Fellow at the Institute of Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability; a Supervisor at the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership; and Director of the Better Protein Institute. Dr Macdonald was recently named winner of the 40 Under 40 Award for Science and Innovation.

About the Better Protein Institute (BPI):
Protein is essential for a healthy diet. But not all protein sources are created equal. Some of the most popular come with significant hidden costs, from environmental damage to serious health risks. To address this, the Better Protein Institute facilitates and accelerates the transition to better sources of protein. To achieve this, it conducts critical research from first principles, and tackles three core questions:
1. What are the best sources of protein currently available?
2. Why aren’t more people consuming them?
3. How can we increase consumption of them?

Contact:
Dr Chris Macdonald, chris.macdonald@lucy.cam.ac.uk

 

Caption

Label exaple from https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/sustainable-food-systems/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2025.1656336/full

Credit

Dr Chris Macdonald

DOI

10.3389/fsufs.2025.1656336 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Reducing meat consumption with consumer insights and the nudge by proxy: the anomaly of asking, the power of protein, and illusions of insufficiency and availability

Article Publication Date

23-Sep-2025

 

An archaeological breakthrough will facilitate the mapping of underground spaces - The technology will enable 3D imaging of the subsurface for archaeological excavations.

Tel-Aviv University

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image: 

. Schematic illustration of cosmic-ray muons penetrating the overburden from various angles.

Muons continually bombard the ground at a known rate and angular distribution. As muons lose energy when passing through matter, their flux is attenuated depending on the integrated density along their path. A higher-than-expected flux from a specific direction indicates reduced attenuation, suggesting the presence of a void or low-density region (marked here as yellow lines). The muon telescope detects these angular flux variations to create maps of subsurface structures.

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Credit: Illustration from the article

A technological breakthrough at Tel Aviv University revolutionizes the world of archaeology: a proof of feasibility for using cosmic radiation detectors to discover underground spaces. The detectors identify muons – particles created when cosmic radiation collides with Earth’s atmosphere, which penetrate the ground before losing their energy and coming to a stop. Thus, by detecting muons, archaeologists can map hidden voids such as tunnels and channels. The research team demonstrated the technology's effectiveness at the City of David archaeological site in Jerusalem, showing how the system successfully maps underground spaces based on changes in the soil's absorptivity to cosmic radiation particles.

 

The study was led by Prof. Erez Etzion from TAU's Raymond and Beverly Sackler School of Physics and Astronomy, and Prof. Oded Lipschits from TAU's Jacob M. Alkow Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures. Other participants included: Prof. Yuval Gadot from the Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures; Prof. Yan Benhammou, Dr. Igor Zolkin, and doctoral student Gilad Mizrachi from the School of Physics and Astronomy; Dr. Yiftah Silver and Dr. Amir Weissbein of Rafael Advanced Defense Systems; and Dr. Yiftah Shalev of the Israel Antiquities Authority. The study's results were published in the Journal of Applied Physics.

 

“From the pyramids in Egypt, through the Maya cities in South America, to ancient sites in Israel, archaeologists struggle to discover underground spaces,” says Prof. Lipschits. “Above-ground structures are relatively easy to excavate, and there are also various methods for identifying walls and structures below the surface. However, there are no effective methods for conducting comprehensive surveys of subterranean spaces beneath the rock on which the ancient site is situated. In the Judean Foothills, for example, the top layer of hard limestone overlies soft chalk, in which the ancients easily carved out vast spaces for water reservoirs, agricultural uses, storage, or even dwellings. Clearly, in such regions, most above-ground archaeological sites resemble Swiss cheese beneath the rock, but we have no way of knowing this. If by chance we excavate above ground, reach the rock, and identify an entrance to a cavity, we could excavate it, but we have no way of locating the subterranean spaces in advance. In the current study, we propose for the first time an innovative method that has been proven very effective in detecting underground spaces with detectors of cosmic radiation, specifically muons.”

 

The researchers explain that a muon is an elementary particle similar to an electron but 207 times more massive. Muons are created in the atmosphere when energetic particles, mainly protons, collide with the nuclei of molecules in the air. This collision generates unstable particles called pions, which decay very quickly into muons. Muons also have a very short lifetime, decaying after 2.2 microseconds, but they move at speeds close to the speed of light, and thanks to Einstein’s special relativity theory, many of them manage to reach and penetrate the ground.

 

“The muon shower hits the ground at a fixed and known rate,” explains Prof. Etzion. “Unlike electrons, which are stopped by the ground at just a few centimeters deep, muons lose energy slowly as they pass through the ground, and some can penetrate much deeper – even up to 100 meters for highly energetic particles. Therefore, by placing muon detectors underground and monitoring the environment, we can identify empty cavities where energy loss is minimal. This process is similar to X-ray imaging: the X-ray beam is stopped by bones but passes through soft tissue like flesh or fat, and a camera on the other side captures the resulting image. In our case, the muons act as the X-ray beam, our detector is the camera, and the underground features are the human body.”

 

As noted, the researchers conducted an impressive demonstration in a rock-hewn installation known as Jeremiah’s Cistern at the archaeological site of the City of David. Combining a high-resolution LiDAR scan of the interior cavity with simulations of the muon flux, they were able to map structural anomalies. Detecting changes in soil penetrability to muons, the system demonstrated the feasibility of using muon tomography for archaeological imaging.

 

“This article is a first milestone,” says Prof. Lipschits. “We ask physicists to respond to the archaeological need and develop smaller, simpler, cheaper, more durable, more accurate, and more power-efficient detectors. In the next stage, we intend to combine physics and archaeology with AI to produce a 3D image of the subsurface from the vast data generated by the detectors. Our test site will be Tel Azekah in the heart of the Judean Foothills, overlooking the Elah Valley.”

 

“This is not our invention,” adds Prof. Etzion. “Already in the 1960s, muons were used to search for hidden chambers in the pyramids in Egypt, and recently the technology was revived. Our innovation lies in developing small and mobile detectors and learning how to operate them at archaeological sites. After all, there is a difference between a detector in laboratory conditions and a detector that must be taken to a cave or excavation, where practical problems of electricity, temperature, and humidity inevitably arise. Detection ranges depend on measuring time; the farther the detector's location, the fewer particles reach it, but realistically, it is possible to analyze images from a distance of up to 30 meters within a reasonable timespan. Therefore, our goal is to place several detectors or move one detector from place to place to produce a 3D image of the entire site eventually. And we have just begun. The next stage involves sophisticated analysis, which will allow us to map everything beneath our feet – even before the excavation begins.”

(Top): An artist’s representation of the detector, showing the main elements and relevant sizes, the optical fibers were omitted for clarity.

(Bottom): The muon detector during its commissioning inside the cistern.

Credit

Gilad Mizrachi / Tel Aviv University

Prof. Erez Etzion seated & Oded Lipschits.

Credit

Tel Aviv University

 

Link to the article:

https://pubs.aip.org/aip/jap/article/138/8/084504/3361099/First-demonstration-of-underground-muon-imaging-at

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DOI

10.1063/5.0273376