Impact

The impacts of this Programme our exceptionally wide ranging. AMR is a critically important global health challenge and our Programme aims to develop new insights and understanding that will directly impact human health nationally and internationally. The pharmaceutical industry is an important sector of the UK economy, and our project has the potential to have positive impact in this area also. To reach our ambitious scientific goals we will develop new techniques and approaches which will be of wider application and hence commercial value, and we will aim to exploit these possibilitiesthrough the project. We will train PDRAs in cutting edge interdisciplinary science which will have long term impact on theircareers, and publicise our work and approach to the public to help inspire the next generation of researchers. Below we provide more detail on these specific areas.

Health in our society

Antibiotics are a cornerstone of modern medicine, allowing treatment of infections but also enablingmany of the other treatments that we take for granted, such as chemotherapy, elective surgery, etc., as antibiotics prevent complications. AMR poses an extraordinary threat the potential impact of which is hard to over-state. Our Programme, by taking an interdisciplinary approach that brings together the predictive capabilities of theoretical physics with cutting edge biology and biophysics, provides an opportunity to make a real difference to how we approach antibiotic stewardship and how we treat AMR.

The pharmaceutical industry

The Programme team are exceptionally well connected across the UK and wider pharmaceutical industry. SF was founding director of a S. aureus vaccine company, Absynth Biologics Ltd. and is well placed to further exploit opportunities as they arise. WV and NZ work closely with Demuris Ltd, a Newcastle based drug discovery company, on potential new antibiotic targets. Our work may also reveal opportunities to re-purpose existing drugs to exploit AMR induced fitness changes. Hence our Programme will contribute to the re-invigoration of the UK pharmaceutical industry.

New techniques and approaches

Our Programme will use and where necessary develop cutting edge techniques for studying bacteria across scales from individual molecules to host organisms. Our target is AMR, but these approaches will doubtless have wider applicability, and we will ensure that as wide as possible an audience is reached. JH is highly experienced in commercialising opportunities within AFM, having founded the successful silicon surface inspection company Infinitesima Ltd., and we are well placed to maximise impact in this area.

Our Programme will be world leading example of interdisciplinary research, spanning multiple length and timescales and using an exceptionally wide range of complementary approaches. The PDRAs involved in the project will gain a unique set of skills which will make them highly employable and help to fulfil the UK requirement for scientists capable of applying quantitative approaches to biological systems and data. We will also showcase the Physics of Life Programme as an example of the best that interdisciplinarity can bring to science. We will impress on the next generation of potential researchers, teachers and industrial leaders, how they need not be constrained by traditional discipline boundaries but can be driven by the desire to understand how life works using whatever tools and approaches are necessary.