September 15, 2017, by jicke
New funding for Antimicrobial Resistance research
Research into new ways to tackle antimicrobial resistance has been given a boost as the University of Nottingham is one of the universities set to benefit from a £2.85m investment from the Medical Research Foundation.
New scientists will explore ways to tackle antimicrobial resistance through a new PhD training programme by the Medical Research Foundation, the charitable foundation of the Medical Research Council (MRC).
Fully funded
The first intake of the Antimicrobial Resistance PhD Training Programme will fully fund 18 students for four years, and the University of Nottingham is one of the 16 participating universities across the UK.
Dr Dov Stekel is leading the University of Nottingham programme and will be looking to recruit students later this year ready to start in 2018. Dr Stekel says: “This funding allows us to broaden our research with a PhD student working with team members who have not yet had access to resources from our other antimicrobial resistance research grants. Antimicrobial Resistance is a major global challenge and it will be very exciting to see the type of projects that are put forward and how they will help us progress our understanding of this problem.”
Antibiotics transformed healthcare in the 20th Century and are considered one of the greatest medical achievements of the era. Today, we still rely on antibiotics to treat everything from minor cuts to life-threatening bacterial infections, and to prevent infection after surgery. These drugs have drastically improved our quality of life and increased our lifespan.
Global threat
In the 21st Century, antibiotic overuse and misuse has led to antibiotics rapidly becoming ineffective. Antimicrobial resistance, specifically antibiotic resistance, now poses a global threat to human life. We need urgent action to halt resistance and to speed up new treatments for bacterial infection. The Medical Research Foundations PhD Training Programme in AMR has been designed in response.
Working with the MRC, the Medical Research Foundation spotted a gap in funding for PhD studentships in this field of research – currently there are few emerging researchers trained in the multidisciplinary approach required to tackle the antimicrobial resistance problem. The programme is designed to help build a strong, active network of new researchers to approach this global challenge in innovative ways.
The Medical Research Foundation’s Chair, Professor Nicholas Lemoine, said: “The Medical Research Foundation is delighted to be funding the UK’s only national PhD Training Programme in antimicrobial resistance research. We believe this will help to strengthen the UK’s research capacity to respond to the global health challenge of antimicrobial resistance, including antibiotic resistance and drug-resistant infections.”
The Medical Research Foundation is continuing to seek funds from its supporters and other sources to fund two further cohorts of PhD students in antimicrobial resistance in the future.
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