By Meaghan Lee Callaghan; video edited by Landon Gray

There were hundreds of research studies and sessions presented at IDWeek 2025 last week in Atlanta. How do you read through them all? 

You could take the advice of IDWeek Chair Yohei Doi, MD, PhD, a professor of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh and at Fujita Health University, in Japan.

Dr. Doi spoke to Infectious Disease Special Edition about what research caught his eye and discussed his background and experience, in a conversation during the conference.

For more from IDWeek, check out our Conference News section, and check back for more video interviews coming soon.

This transcript was made using artificial intelligence.


00:07
My name is Yohei Doi. I am a professor of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh and also Fujita Health University in Japan.

Can you tell us a bit about yourself and your research?

00:19
So I’ve been studying antibiotic resistance for since, actually, I was a medical student. So it’s been a long time. Just fascinated by how bugs, especially bacteria, evolved and adapt to a new environment created by humans over such a short time period. So, I’m interested in anything that’s really affecting patients at the time.

So one of the major bugs that I’ve been working on is one called Acinetobacter. It’s a type of bug that infects patients who are admitted to hospitals, typically. And the ones that are carbapenem resistant are the really problematic ones because we have very few options to treat them with. They really became a problem in U.S. hospitals in the early 2000s. And I at one point were seeing so many hospitals affected by carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter. And I started looking at the epidemiology, mechanisms of resistance. So how do these bugs become resistant to not only but many other antibiotics, such as colistin, which is another drug that we use for Acinetobacter. And then kind of trying to see what we could do about that. So are there better ways to use existing drugs as well as: [Are] there any new ways to treat these patients? 


Can you tell us a bit about some of your favorite research or sessions at IDWeek 2025?

02:06
I was just at some of the abstract sessions, and I’m really impressed by the number of new vaccines, and also antiviral drugs that are being developed. And so for example, they were just presenting on new vaccines for shigellosis. It’s not a very common infection in the U.S., but globally, it’s a major cause of diarrhea and deaths in children. And so there’s a new vaccine for that. A vaccine for norovirus, which is, it’s actually quite common in the U.S. as well as in old[er] patients. New antiviral agents for like herpes infections, RSV, respiratory syncytial virus infections that affect mostly babies and also older adults. Just very exciting to see new prevention and treatment modalities to ones that we didn’t have good, good ones for so far.

How impactful will antimicrobial resistance be in the near future?

03:26
Antibiotic resistance is going to be one of the major public health issues in the coming several decades. That is if nothing is done. But with tools and will, I think we’ll be able to curb the damage through better prevention and also better treatment and wiser use of existing drugs. So, good stewardship.