2021 marks 100 combined years of fighting infectious diseases (ID) and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) for the International Society of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (ISAC) and the Alliance for the Prudent Use of Antibiotics (APUA)

To celebrate this important occasion, ISAC held a webinar with presentations from Prof. Alasdair Geddes (Immediate Past Editor of International Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy), Prof. Pierre Tattevin (APUA Board Chair), Prof. Andreas Voss (ISAC President) and Prof. Serhat Unal (ISAC Secretary General).

ISAC, originally the International Society of Chemotherapy for Infection and Cancer (ISC), was founded in 1961 at a time when the specialties of antimicrobial and anti-cancer chemotherapy were intrinsically linked. Since then, they have diverged to become independent specialties in their own right and, over time, the society oriented towards antimicrobial rather than anti-cancer chemotherapy. This focus led to the society’s current name, the International Society of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (ISAC). ISAC, a federation of Member Societies, now has 93 Members around the world which in turn have over 60,000 individual members.

In 1981, Stuart Levy founded the Alliance for the Prudent Use of Antibiotics (APUA); the first organisation to address antibiotic preservation; a topic which has become a specialty in its own right; that of “antibiotic stewardship”. Coinciding with Stuart’s retirement, APUA took the decision to merge with ISAC in 2019, given ISAC’s further refining of its focus towards antimicrobial stewardship and antimicrobial resistance.

International colleagues, past and present, are sharing their recollections of the societies in a series of short videos.

Click the pins to watch videos already uploaded and to see which ones are coming soon (yellow).