June: gw4amr-launch | News and features – University of Bristol

The GW4 Alliance (Bath, Bristol, Cardiff and Exeter universities GW4) formally launched their new One Health antimicrobial resistance research consortium this week [Wednesday 16 June]. The World Health Organisation cites antimicrobial resistance (AMR) as one of the most significant risks facing the world. AMR threatens global health and development as it impacts on human, animal and plant health and also our environment, water safety and food security.

The GW4 AMR Alliancehas been established to tackle this global challenge and become the UKs leading interdisciplinary One Health AMR research consortium, recognised worldwide.

A launch event showcasing GW4s cross-disciplinary AMR research collaborations and some of the One Health AMR projects and programmes being undertaken by GW4 teams and their collaborators took place on Wednesday [16 June] and included talks from University of Bristol researchers who discussed some of their latest findings from AMR research projects.

Antimicrobial resistance where bacterial, fungal, viral and parasitic infections become resistant to existing antimicrobial drugs is an increasing global societal threat, as there is no matching increase in new antibiotics or new therapies to help treat patients infections.

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought the pandemic of AMR into sharper focus. Antimicrobial use, which drives the emergence of AMR, increased in many intensive care units around the world, as clinicians mitigated the development of secondary bacterial and fungal infections in acutely ill hospitalised patients. AMR is a slower moving, silent pandemic but requires urgent action now to stop resistance expanding and find drugs to treat these infections.

The GW4 AMR Alliance builds on and enhances the GW4 universities strong and diverse portfolio of AMR research. Its vision is to tackle AMR using a One Health approach and to be the partner of choice for future AMR research consortia funding to help mitigate the urgent threat of AMR.

During the launch, Dr Kristen Reyher, leader of BristolsAMR Forceresearch group at Bristol Vet School, Matthew Avison, Professor of Molecular Bacteriology from Bristols School of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, and Helen Lambert, Professor of Medical Anthropology at Bristol Medical School, addressed AMR known unknowns as well as the link between climate change and AMR, and presented their latest research findings from projects in Thailand, Argentina and China.

Professor Avison, lead PI of the One Health Drivers of AMR in Thailand (OH-DART)project, discussed the key levers that could be pulled to help mitigate the threat of AMR in the country which, in 2010 was estimated to have caused 38,000 deaths and an economic loss of 1.2 billion US$ per year. This is mostly due to antibacterial resistance (ABR) which is common in bacteria isolated from humans, animals and the environment. He also discussed a recent paper modelling the impacts of antimicrobial usage changes in farming and human medicine.

Dr Reyher presented the latest findings from the Bristol-led One Health Selection and Transmission of Antimicrobial Resistance (OH-STAR) study and their implications for surveillance of AMR on farms, including advice about sampling from the same sites on farms, controlling for temperature in sampling and using a consistent sampling technique.

Professor Lambert, lead PI of the UK-China AMR Partnership Hub STAR-CHINA, discussed the social and cultural drivers which underpin the threat of AMR such as antibiotic prescribing and environmental exposure via water use practices, highlighting the need for interventions that alter AMR transmission pathways to take patterns of human behaviour into account.

Dr Timothy Jinks, Head of the Drug-Resistant Infections Programme at theWellcome Trust, who is delivering the keynote lecture, said: Containing and controlling AMR requires collaborative, long-term, interdisciplinary and sustainable research taking a global One Health approach. It is great news that the GW4 AMR Alliance is launching to increase understanding, development and implementation of effective interventions.

GW4s proven academic excellence in AMR research across disciplines and across institutions is demonstrated by a portfolio of AMR relevant research funding in excess of 40m.

Dr Joanna Jenkinson, GW4 Alliance Director, commented: Our strategic initiative is in total accord with the G7 Health Ministers recent communique (on 4 June) which outlined the need to act on the growing pandemic of AMR with clear leadership, bold science-based actions and a One Health approach, recognising and understanding that the health of humans, animals, plants and their shared environment are inextricably interlinked. The GW4 has fostered collaborative AMR projects at scale to achieve more than our institutions can individually. We are also proud to support our early career researchers (ECR) through our Crucible programme on Interdisciplinary Approaches to AMR and opportunities to apply for seed funding. We are delighted that one new ECR AMR community, further supported by our GW4 Generator Award funding scheme, is contributing a presentation at the launch today on their project to find new antibiotic leads.

AMR disproportionately affects low-and-middle income countries and the research being showcased today demonstrates our global reach with collaborative GW4 projects taking place in Thailand, China, Bangladesh, Argentina, India and here in the UK. GW4 researchers are exploring what drives the emergence of AMR in different settings e.g. the environment (particularly in aquatic systems from industrial and domestic waste), livestock farming, aquaculture and healthcare.

Identifying the drivers of AMR will help to help modify them by informing policy and implementing interventions to mitigate this rising threat. In the UK alone, there was a nine per cent increase in deaths caused by drug-resistant infections between 2017 and 2018.

Chair of the GW4 AMR Alliance, Prof Eshwar Mahenthiralingam (Cardiff University), said: This is a very exciting and timely consortium bringing the considerable AMR research strengths across the GW4 universities together to work as one cohesive unit to drive forward our understanding of, and to develop new interventions for containing and controlling AMR.

About the GW4 AMR Alliance

The GW4 Alliance Bath, Bristol, Cardiff and Exeter universities (GW4) are developing initiatives at scale that recognise the combined research strengths of the Alliance. The new GW4 AMR Alliance joins a number of global challenge research programmes (including climate) designed to foster new regional, national and global research partnerships to tackle major global challenges at scale.

The AMR Alliance is taking a One Health approach to tackle the growing threat of AMR. A 12-strong Steering Group draws together key members from the GW4s AMR research community to drive the programme forward, using cross-institutional, synergistic, interdisciplinary research that maximises engagement, translation and impact. The University of Bristol is represented by Professor Matthew Avison (School of Cellular and Molecular Medicine and Bristol AMR lead), Professor Helen Lambert (Bristol Medical School and UKRI Challenge Leader for Global Health) and Dr Kristen Reyher (Bristol Veterinary School).

About Bristol AMR

TheBristol AMRinterdisciplinary research network is led by a cross-faculty management committee comprising AMR research investigators from all six faculties.

Since 2015, the Bristol AMR research community has received 17.2 million of AMR research funding including grants awarded from the UKRI 'Tackling AMR A Cross-Council AMR initiative'. Funded projects include EPSRC BristolBridge, ESRC AMR Research Champion (Prof Helen Lambert) and three large consortium awards for AMR Themes 2 (BBSRC-led), 3 (NERC-led) and 4 (ESRC-led).

Bristol AMR investigators work across all disciplines to help tackle AMR, including the discovery of new antibiotics, the development of novel antimicrobial materials to prevent infection, rapid diagnostics for AMR, understanding behaviours to promote the responsible use of antimicrobials in healthcare and veterinary medicine, using data linkage to improve the use of antibiotics in healthcare and understanding how different regulatory systems in human and animal healthcare drive global AMR.

Bristol AMR investigators take a global One Health approach and work with collaborators across the UK and in low-and-middle income countries. Projects include an MRC/DoHSC 'AMR in a Global Context' award to study the drivers of AMR in Thailand; two MRC/Newton Fund UK-China Partnership Programmes to identify the key determinants of antimicrobial use and strategies to reduce the burden of AMR in China; a DoHSC GAMRIF/CONICET UK-Argentina awardlooking at future-proofing antibacterial resistance risk management surveillance and stewardship in the Argentinian farming environment; an MRC South Africa-UK Drug Discovery Partnership Hub to find new antibiotics from biodiverse-rich habitats and an EPSRC GCRF funded project to help develop nanoparticle based rapid diagnostics for tuberculosis with collaborators in Kenya.

Bristol also leads the 4 million Medical Research Foundation National PhD Training Programme in AMR Research to train next generation of AMR researchers through its multidisciplinary AMR studentships its national training cohort of 150 PhD students studying AMR across the UK.

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June: gw4amr-launch | News and features - University of Bristol