BristolBridge: Bridging the Gaps between the Engineering and Physical Sciences and Antimicrobial Resistance

在许多医学领域，抗菌素耐药性(AMR)是一个严重且日益严重的问题。AMR被认为是英国面临的最重要的挑战之一。有效的抗菌化合物的可获得性为许多现代医疗保健提供了基础，使侵入性外科手术和激进的化疗方案成为可能，否则这些程序将受到不可接受的细菌感染风险的影响。在这一广泛的领域内，耐药革兰氏阴性细菌作为医疗保健相关感染的原因日益普遍，缺乏有效对抗这些微生物的新药物，以及随之而来的刺激抗生素开发的要求，所有这些都在英国首席医疗官最近的报告中得到强调。物理学家、工程师和数学家可以为解决AMR做出潜在的变革性贡献。释放这一潜力需要新的跨学科工作方式，并将这些学科的研究人员与生物学和人类和动物医学的同行聚集在一起。我们将通过以下具体目标实现这一目标：(1)广泛的网络活动，以建立新的跨学科研究社区(2)泵启动项目，在我们已经确定的三个不同的方向上，与AMR战略保持一致，以促进抗击AMR的变革性研究(3)培训活动(培训EPS研究人员生物医学方法和模型，反之亦然)，帮助EPS研究人员了解AMR，并使生物医学研究人员应用EPS方法，有效培训新一代研究人员，以解决AMR问题。布里斯托尔大学处于非常有利的地位，可以建立并向AMR提供新的工程和物理科学研究，它结合了所有这些领域的国际卓越表现。布里斯托尔大学拥有世界领先的物理科学、数学、计算机科学和工程研究，其中大部分是由EPSRC资助的。布里斯托尔也是一个蓬勃发展的基础生物医学、临床、兽医和社区卫生研究中心，对AMR的研究是一个关键优势。通过我们的感染和免疫研究主题以及伊丽莎白·布莱克韦尔健康研究所(EBI)的支持，AMR是布里斯托尔大学的战略重点，我们已经开始在这些跨学科社区建立联系。这一弥合差距的项目将利用广泛的优秀EPS研究人员存在的潜在机会，包括那些以前从未认为他们的研究与AMR相关的人。通过确保EPS研究人员成为跨学科研究活动的核心成员，我们将确定并传播新的方法来分析、缓解并最终克服AMR。大华大学拥有世界领先的材料科学、工程学、合成生物学、物理学、数学/统计学、纳米科学和化学研究，所有这些都得到了EPSRC的大量资金支持。大华银行目前拥有英国大学第六大EPSRC投资组合，拥有超过2亿GB的实时拨款。布里斯托尔也是一个蓬勃发展的生物医学、临床和社区卫生研究中心(在临床科学、兽医科学、细胞和分子医学以及我们的NHS信托合作伙伴中，大华银行拥有EPSRC归类为与医疗保健部门相关的第五大活跃赠款组合，总计约3000万GB)，其中AMR研究构成了关键部分。大华银行在与EBI发展新的跨学科合作以应对重大社会挑战方面有着出色的记录，EBI成立于2012年，目的是实现这一明确目的。EBI是帮助AMR建设跨学科能力的理想选择，并且有一个公开和透明地部署这类资金的现有治理机制。

Antimicrobial (antibiotic) resistance (AMR) is a major and growing problem in many areas of medicine. AMR has been recognised as one of the most important challenges facing the UK. The availability of effective antimicrobial compounds underpins much of modern health care, making possible invasive surgical procedures and aggressive chemotherapeutic regimes that would otherwise be compromised by unacceptable risk of bacterial infection. Within this broad area, the increasing prevalence of resistant Gram-negative bacteria as causes of healthcare associated infections, the lack of new agents effective against these organisms, and the consequent requirement to stimulate antibiotic development, are all highlighted in the recent report of the UK Chief Medical Officer. Physical scientists, engineers and mathematicians can make potentially transformative contributions to tackling AMR. Unleashing this potential requires new ways of interdisciplinary working, and bringing together researchers from these disciplines with counterparts from biology and human and animal medicine. We will achieve this by the following specific objectives:(1) A wide range of networking activities to build new interdisciplinary research communities(2) Pump-priming projects in, and across, three distinct strands we have identified, building on EPS research strengths, aligned with AMR strategy, to foster transformative research to combat AMR(3) Training activities (training EPS researchers in biomedical methods and models and vice versa), to aid EPS researchers in understanding AMR and equip biomedical researchers to apply EPS methods, effectively training a new generation of researchers to tackle the problems of AMR The University of Bristol is exceptionally well placed to build and deliver new engineering and physical science research into AMR, combining as it does international excellence across all of these fields. The University of Bristol houses world-leading research in the physical sciences, mathematics, computer science and engineering, much of which is EPSRC-funded. Bristol is also a thriving centre for basic biomedical, clinical, veterinary and community health research, with studies into AMR as a key strength. AMR is a strategic priority at the University of Bristol through our Infection and Immunity research theme and with support from the Elizabeth Blackwell Institute (EBI) for Health Research, we have already begun building connections across these interdisciplinary communities. This Bridging the Gaps project will exploit the potential opportunities that exist across a wide range of outstanding EPS researchers, including those who have never previously felt their research was relevant to AMR. By ensuring that EPS researchers are core members of interdisciplinary research activity, we will identify and seed new approaches to analyse, mitigate and ultimately overcome AMR. UoB houses world-leading research in materials science, engineering, synthetic biology, physics, maths/statistics, nanoscience and chemistry, all with significant EPSRC funding. UoB currently has the 6th largest EPSRC portfolio of any UK University, with in excess of £200M in live grants. Bristol is also a thriving centre for biomedical, clinical and community health research (within Clinical Sciences, Veterinary Sciences, Cellular and Molecular Medicine and in our NHS Trust partners, UoB has the fifth largest active portfolio of grants classified by EPSRC as relevant to the Healthcare sector, totalling approx £30M), in which studies of AMR form a key part. UoB has an outstanding track record of success in developing new interdisciplinary collaborations to address major societal challenges with the EBI, which was formed in 2012 for this express purpose. The EBI is ideally placed to help building interdisciplinary capacity in AMR, and has an existing governance mechanism for open and transparent deployment of this type of funding.