Beyond Antibiotics

2019年世界卫生组织（世卫组织）关于抗菌素耐药性（AMR）的报告将其确定为：“我们作为一个全球社区面临的最大威胁之一。”耐药细菌的进化、我们对抗生素的过度使用以及未能开发出应对感染的新方法，可能会让我们在未来30年内找不到可行的治疗方法，即使是最微不足道的感染。世卫组织和国家机构为提高对抗生素耐药性的认识和减少抗生素的使用作出了重大努力，但仍迫切需要加强这些努力，而且至关重要的是开发替代药物。该方案的目的就是解决这一需要。该计划将包括四个相互关联的工作包，重点关注核心研究目标：(1)开发人类类器官模型，用于研究细菌与组织微环境之间的相互作用以及与宿主微生物组的更大规模相互作用。(2)新的显微镜方法，以补充类器官模型，并促进细菌的快速表征，以提高诊断。(3)新的抗菌疗法和靶向给药技术，以改善现有抗生素的使用并提供可行的替代方案。(4)治疗感染和促进免疫功能的“无药物”方法，从而进一步减少抗生素的使用，并提供适合大规模环境/工业使用的方法。这将得到两项平行的转化活动的支持，以促进转化途径的发展，并与临床和工业利益相关者、决策者和公众进行更广泛的接触。

The 2019 World Health Organisation (WHO) report on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) identifies it as: "one of the greatest threats we face as a global community." The evolution of drug-resistant bacteria, our over-use of antibiotics and failure to develop new methods for tackling infection could leave us without viable treatments for even the most trivial infections within the next 3 decades. There have been significant efforts by the WHO and national agencies to raise awareness of AMR and reduce the use of antibiotics, but there is still an urgent need to intensify these efforts and, crucially, to develop alternatives. The aim of the programme is to address this need.The programme will consist of 4 interlinked work packages focussed on the core research objectives: (1) The development of human organoid models for studying interactions between bacteria and the tissue microenvironment and larger scale interactions with the host microbiome. (2) New microscopy methods to complement the organoid models and to facilitate rapid characterisation of bacteria for improved diagnosis.(3) New antimicrobial therapeutics and targeted delivery techniques to improve the use of existing antibiotics and provide viable alternatives.(4) "Drug-free" methods for treating infections and promoting immune function thereby further reducing the use of antibiotics and providing methods suitable for large scale environmental/industrial use.These will be supported by 2 parallel translational activities to enable development of the translational pathway and wider engagement with clinical and industrial stakeholders, policy-makers and the public.