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

抗菌素（抗生素）耐药性（AMR）是许多医学领域日益严重的一个重大问题。抗生素耐药性被认为是英国面临的最重要的挑战之一。有效抗菌化合物的可用性是现代卫生保健的基础，使侵入性外科手术和积极的化疗方案成为可能，否则这些方案将受到不可接受的细菌感染风险的影响。在这一广泛领域内，耐药革兰氏阴性菌日益普遍，是导致医疗保健相关感染的原因，缺乏有效对抗这些微生物的新药物，因此需要刺激抗生素的发展，这些都在联合王国首席医疗官最近的报告中得到了强调。物理科学家、工程师和数学家可以为解决抗菌素耐药性做出潜在的变革性贡献。释放这一潜力需要跨学科工作的新方法，并将这些学科的研究人员与生物学、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来实现这一目标：(1)开展广泛的网络活动，以建立新的跨学科研究社区；(2)在我们确定的三个不同领域开展启动项目，以建立EPS研究优势，与AMR战略保持一致，以促进对抗AMR的变革性研究；(3)培训活动（培训EPS研究人员使用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能够应用EPS方法，有效地培训新一代研究人员来解决AMR问题。布里斯托尔大学在AMR领域建立和提供新的工程和物理科学研究方面处于非常有利的地位，结合了所有这些领域的国际卓越水平。布里斯托大学在物理科学、数学、计算机科学和工程领域拥有世界领先的研究，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，抗生素耐药性研究是一个关键优势。AMR是布里斯托尔大学的战略重点，通过我们的感染和免疫研究主题，并在伊丽莎白布莱克韦尔研究所（EBI）健康研究的支持下，我们已经开始在这些跨学科社区之间建立联系。这个弥合差距的项目将利用存在于众多杰出的EPS研究人员之间的潜在机会，包括那些以前从未认为他们的研究与AMR相关的研究人员。通过确保EPS研究人员成为跨学科研究活动的核心成员，我们将确定并培育新的方法来分析、减轻并最终克服抗菌素耐药性。大华大学在材料科学、工程学、合成生物学、物理学、数学/统计学、纳米科学和化学等领域拥有世界领先的研究成果，这些研究都得到了EPSRC的大量资助。大华银行目前在英国所有大学中拥有第六大EPSRC投资组合，拥有超过2亿英镑的补助金。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，大华银行拥有由EPSRC分类为与医疗保健部门相关的第五大活跃赠款组合，总计约3000万英镑），其中抗生素耐药性研究是关键部分。大华银行在开发新的跨学科合作方面取得了卓越的成功，并与EBI合作解决了重大的社会挑战，EBI于2012年成立，旨在实现这一明确目标。EBI的理想位置是帮助建立抗菌药耐药性的跨学科能力，并且有一个现有的治理机制来公开和透明地部署这类资金。

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.