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

抗生素耐药性（AMR）是许多医学领域的一个主要且日益严重的问题。AMR被认为是英国面临的最重要挑战之一。有效的抗微生物化合物的可用性是现代医疗保健的基础，使侵入性外科手术和侵入性化疗方案成为可能，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，耐药革兰氏阴性菌作为医疗相关感染的原因日益普遍，缺乏有效对抗这些生物体的新药物，以及因此需要刺激抗生素开发，这些都在英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AMR问题做出潜在的变革性贡献。释放这种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、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）在我们确定的三个不同领域内和跨三个不同领域的泵启动项目，以EPS研究优势为基础，与AMR战略保持一致，以促进变革性研究，以应对AMR（3）培训活动（在生物医学方法和模型方面培训EPS研究人员，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，有效地培养新一代的研究人员，以解决AMR的问题，布里斯托大学是非常好的位置，建立和提供新的工程和物理科学研究进入AMR，结合了所有这些领域的国际卓越。布里斯托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EPSRC资助的。布里斯托也是基础生物医学、临床、兽医和社区卫生研究的繁荣中心，AMR研究是其关键优势。AMR是在布里斯托通过我们的感染和免疫研究主题的大学的战略重点，并从伊丽莎白布莱克威尔研究所（EBI）健康研究的支持下，我们已经开始在这些跨学科社区建立连接。这个弥合差距项目将利用广泛的优秀EPS研究人员存在的潜在机会，包括那些以前从未觉得他们的研究与AMR相关的人。通过确保EPS研究人员是跨学科研究活动的核心成员，我们将确定和播种新的方法来分析，减轻并最终克服AMR。UoB拥有世界领先的材料科学，工程，合成生物学，物理学，数学/统计学，纳米科学和化学研究，所有这些都有重要的EPSRC资金。UoB目前拥有任何英国大学的第六大EPSRC投资组合，拥有超过2亿英镑的生活赠款。布里斯托也是生物医学，临床和社区卫生研究的蓬勃发展的中心（在临床科学，兽医科学，细胞和分子医学和我们的NHS信托合作伙伴中，UoB拥有EPSRC归类为与医疗保健部门相关的第五大积极的赠款组合，总计约3000万英镑），其中AMR研究是关键部分。UoB在开发新的跨学科合作以应对EBI的重大社会挑战方面取得了出色的成功记录，EBI成立于2012年。EBI是帮助建立AMR跨学科能力的理想场所，并且拥有公开和透明部署此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.