SMS Newsletter March 2025

MARCH 2025

IN THIS ISSUE:

A word from the President

Clinical Microbiology / Mycology News
Trichophyton indotineae: Update for diagnostic laboratories

Star-3 project

Molecular Microbiology News

Upcoming events

Open Positions

A word from the President

Dear Microbiologists,

Having been a member of the Swiss Society for Microbiology for more than 20 years, I am truly honored to serve as the society’s president for the next three years. Let me start out by sincerely thanking our former president, Jacques Schrenzel, for his dedication in strengthening our society over the past three years. Always with a smile, Jacques has been a superb president and a skilled negotiator, miraculously turning conference deficits into profits. In fact, it is largely thanks to his efforts – along with those of our treasurer, Jörg Jores – that the society currently enjoys a solid financial foundation.

I would also like to thank all SSM board members, who meet four times a year and spend quite some hours on keeping together the different scientific sections of the society, early career initiatives, and public outreach efforts. One of our most important, intriguing, and rewarding tasks is organizing the annual meeting, which this year will take place in Interlaken from August 27-28. Please mark these dates in your calendars and consider attending. The meetings would not run as frictionless without the great support of the conference organization Meeting.com and its managing director, Nicole Giacomini. That said, we are always eager to welcome new faces – especially anyone willing to take on the role of lead organizer for the 2026 SSM annual meeting, preferably in the French-speaking part of Switzerland.

The primary mission of the SSM is to promote Microbiology in Switzerland and beyond, in all its fascinating – and sometimes unsettling – aspects. To achieve this, we not only cover different microbiological disciplines but also engage with policymakers, service institutions, industry, academia, and educational organizations. This is more important than ever, given the current aggressive climate of anti-science sentiment that swamps certain parts of the world. Countering these tendencies is the only kind of climate change we should embrace. Another formidable task is the education of the next generation(s) of science-driven minds, well trained in distinguishing “alternative facts” from facts and skilled in their interpretation. As an optimistic first step in this direction, we have launched a new website, which hopefully will boost information distribution, knowledge sharing, networking, and visibility. Please visit the website (https://www.swissmicrobiology.ch/) and provide feedback.

Finally, in a time when seeking facts and striving to distinguish facts from interpretation is itself a strong political statement, we should not forget that on a daily basis, we bath in a sea of microbes – some benevolent, some malevolent, and many seemingly neutral. We have the privilege of studying and – in the best case – domesticating these fascinating organisms for our benefit. I look forward very much to the next three years, filled with many interesting encounters, excellent and ever-surprising science, and – hopefully – as little administration as possible.

Truly yours,

Hubert Hilbi

SSM president 2025-2027

Clinical Microbiology / Mycology News
Trichophyton indotineae: Update for diagnostic laboratories

Trichophyton indotineae, which is also referred to as T. mentagrophytes genotype VIII (TM-VIII), is an emerging dermatophyte species that is characterised by persistent dermatomycoses and widespread antifungal resistance. T. indotineae has attracted particular attention due to its significant resistance to terbinafine, which is explained by mutations in the squalene epoxidase (SQLE) gene.

Dermatomycosis caused by T. indotineae is often severe (covering large regions of the body), difficult to treat and often recurrent. First cases in Switzerland have been dated back to 2014 and up to now, >70 cases have been noted at the laboratories of the five universities. A majority of cases are seen in patients from Middle East to Southeast origin.

As morphological differences between T. indotineae, T. mentagrophytes, and T. interdigitale are minimal, these species cannot be distinguished by traditional methods. Identification of T. indotineae currently requires molecular techniques such as ITS sequencing or alternatively can be done with MALDI-TOF using free external MSI library (https://msi.happy-dev.fr/). Commercial tests that are able to identify the species are in preparation. Resistance to terbinafine could be suspected by a growth of colonies on media supplemented with terbinafine (0.2 ug/ml)

Current advice:

A dermatophyte might be T. indotineae when the following conditions are given:

Isolation from difficult-to-treat tinea or recurrent tinea
Identification by standard techniques or currently available commercial tests as mentagrophytes or T. interdigitale
Patient origin from Middle East to Southeast Asia

In these cases, we advise you to send the isolate to one of the five mycology laboratories associated to university hospitals for confirmation and, if needed, antifungal resistance testing:

Basel: Labormedizin, Klinische Bakteriologie / Mykologie, Universitätsspital Basel, Petersgraben 4, CH-4031 Basel
Bern: Universität Bern, Institut für Infektionskrankheiten, Mykologielabor, Friedbühlstrasse 25, 3001 Bern
Geneva: Hôpitaux universitaires de Genève, Laboratoire de dermatologie, Rue Gabrielle Perret-Gentil, 4, 1211 Genève
Lausanne: CHUV, Service de dermato-vénéréologie. Laboratoire de mycologie. Hôpital de Beaumont. 1011 Lausanne
Zurich: Universitätsspital Zürich, Dermatologische Klinik, Mykologielabor, Rämistrasse 100, 8091 Zürich

Philipp Bosshard (Zürich), Alix Coste/Michel Monod (Lausanne), Lionel Fontao/Béatrice Ninet (Geneva), Claudia Lang (Basel), Konrad Mühlethaler (Bern).

Star-3 project

The StAR program of the federal office of public health has done a project call focusing on antibiotic stewardship together with Swissnoso. The Coordination Commission for Clinical Microbiology of the SSM has participated in the evaluation process. The winners recently have been determined – please find more about this project.

The StAR-3 project aims to provide a comprehensive handbook to support hospitals in implementing Antimicrobial Stewardship Programs (ASP). To identify suitable implementation tools, a project competition was held in 2024. A total of 22 projects were submitted by healthcare professionals from hospitals across Switzerland. Seven projects, suitable for large, medium-sized, and small hospitals, will receive financial support. The resulting implementation tools will be included in the second edition of the comprehensive handbook, which will be made available to hospitals by the end of 2026.

For more information on the selected projects, please visit the Swissnoso website: https://www.swissnoso.ch/forschung-entwicklung/umsetzung-star/ausschreibung-ergebnisse.»

Molecular Microbiology News

The international EMBO/FEBS lecture course “Cell biology of host-pathogen interactions”, which had to be postponed from 2024 to 2025, will now definitively take place from May 26-30, 2025 in Blois, France (https://meetings.embo.org/event/24-host-pathogen-bio). The meeting is located at the beautiful Château Royal de Blois, in the center of the Loire valley, south-west of Paris. In addition to hosting 25 internationally renowned speakers, the lecture course provides the opportunity to give short talks or present posters. While the application deadline is about to pass, last minute applications are still considered.
Please contact Hubert Hilbi (hilbi@imm.uzh.ch) as soon as possible, in case you are interested.