Anti-microbial, or anti-biotic resistance is a looming health crisis. Years of reliance on existing antibiotics, intensive farming, hospital and GP prescribing, and public lack of understanding have accelerated the ability of bacteria and microbes – living organisms – to develop resistance to the anti-biotics designed to kill them.

 

Alexander Fleming’s 1945 Nobel Prize acceptance speech warned that in time, humans would make antibiotics useless. Without these drugs, treatment, and surgery we take for granted will be impossible; recovery from even minor infections and illnesses will fail, be more complicated, or much slower.  Until new antibiotics are identified, antibiotic stewardship, or ‘guardianship’ is required so that they remain effective for as long as possible. 

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The ‘Precision AMR’ initiative involves researchers and clinicians from Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH), Institute of Child Health (ICH), UCL and UCL Hospital (UCLH), with an investment from the Department of Health and Social Care to accelerate the development of diagnostic, behavioural and interventional tools and their early implementation into clinical practice.

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27 projects have been awarded seed funding, with microbiology, bacteriology, fungal and behavioural work data science (data linkage, artificial intelligence and machine learning) prioritised. Here are some of them.

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