PACCARB panel highlights One Health gaps: measuring therapeutic non-response, diagnostics standards and cross-sector surveillance

Panelists and PACCARB members used the session to underscore cross-cutting challenges at the One Health interface of AMR and microbiome science. Presenters described mechanisms and experimental results across lab, farm and field settings; Council members then focused on measurement, surveillance and translation.

Multiple members flagged therapeutic non-response — a proposed outcome that moves beyond organism-level susceptibility to whether a patient, animal or population clinically improves — as both important and currently hard to measure. "How do we measure therapeutic nonresponse?" Dr. Thomas Wittum asked in discussion, noting it will require collaboration with clinicians and new data sources. Members also called for standards to define a 'healthy' microbiome, better diagnostic validation, and attention to vulnerable populations when translating research to policy and practice.

Other repeated themes included incentives for on-farm mitigation (Francisco Zagmutt asked how to encourage prairie strips adoption), the need for multiomics and longitudinal data to establish transmission pathways, and the challenge of scaling translational investments so microbiome-based diagnostics and interventions reach clinical and veterinary settings. The council adjourned with plans to continue the One Health conversation the following day.