Sheffield antimicrobial resistance network - SHAMROK

抗生素在20世纪40年代的引入彻底改变了医疗保健，并在20世纪余下的时间里支撑了医学进步，但仅仅70多年后，我们现在面临着越来越多的抗菌素耐药性，威胁到许多挽救生命的治疗方法。开发新的创新解决方案以应对这些挑战的问题来自各种领域，如缺乏对解释抗微生物药物作用方式的基础科学的理解，以及对开发新治疗方法中的临床瓶颈的理解。如果我们要成功地开发出新的治疗方法，并在赢得对抗细菌感染的战争中保持目前不稳定的地位，我们就需要充分理解并应对这些挑战。要做到这一点，需要创新的方法，从物理科学和工程学中汲取专业知识和前沿方法，并与生物学家和临床医生合作。谢菲尔德大学在细菌研究方面处于世界领先地位，从微生物学到疫苗开发和临床实践，以及生物学家，医务人员，化学家，物理学家和工程师之间密切合作以解决这些问题的良好记录。然而，从更广泛的角度来看，通过鼓励和发展新的研究合作，大学可以提供更多的东西，这些合作将充分吸引工程和物理科学领域的人，从而有可能帮助克服瓶颈和问题。作为国际领先的Imagine: Imaging Life和Florey研究所的一部分，该项目旨在建立一个框架，以培育和发展新的研究机会，以扩大现有的研究机会。我们将建立一个广泛的跨学院网络，专注于EPSRC定义的我们最适合解决的挑战：开发用于理解细菌学和宿主反应的物理和物理化学工具（“理解细菌学的工具”）；开发用于预防感染和提供抗菌素的新表面、敷料和组织工程相关方法（“改进的抗菌素药物递送策略”和“预防感染的智能表面和敷料”）。一系列重点研讨会、跨学科研究和短期概念验证研究项目将为一个全球性问题提供新的合作和解决方案。我们的目标是既利用明显的协同效应，又积极深入地寻找新的机会，充分利用我们现有的专业知识，推动不受传统学科界限限制的真正变革性活动。

The introduction of antibiotics in the 1940's revolutionised healthcare and underpinned medical advances through the rest of the century, but little over 70 years later we now face increasing instances of antimicrobial resistance that threaten many life-saving treatments. Problems with developing new innovative solutions to these challenges come from areas as diverse as a lack of understanding of the fundamental science explaining the mode of action of antimicrobials, to understanding clinical bottlenecks in the development of new treatments. If we are to be successful in developing new treatments and maintain our current precarious position in winning the war against bacterial infection, we need to understand and address these challenges fully. To do this will require innovative approaches that draw in expertise and cutting-edge methodology from the physical sciences and engineering, working in partnership with biologists and clinicians. The University of Sheffield has world-leaders in bacterial research, from microbiology to vaccine development and clinical practice, and a proven track record of close collaboration between Biologists, Medics, Chemists, Physicists and Engineers to address these problems. However, looking more widely the University has considerably more to offer through encouraging and developing new research collaborations that will fully engage those in Engineering and the Physical Sciences with the potential to help circumvent bottlenecks and problems.This project aims to develop a framework to nurture and develop new research opportunities to augment those already in place as part of our internationally leading Imagine: Imaging Life and Florey Institutes. We will build an expansive, cross Faculty network that will focus on the EPSRC defined challenges we are best placed to address: the development of physical and physicochemical tools for understanding bacteriology and the host response ("Tools for understanding bacteriology"); and the development of new surfaces, dressings, and tissue engineering related approaches for preventing infections and delivering antimicrobials ("Improved drug delivery strategies for antimicrobials" and "Smart surfaces and dressings to prevent infection"). A series of focussed workshops, discipline hopping research and short proof-of-concept research projects will deliver new collaborations and solutions to a worldwide problem. We will aim to both take advantage of obvious synergies and to actively search deeper for new opportunities, making the most of our existing expertise to catalyse truly transformative activities that are unconstrained by traditional discipline boundaries.