Alison Holmes champions new collaboration to tackle drug resistance

Friday saw the launch of the new Antimicrobial Research Collaborative, championed by Professor Alison Holmes.

The Antimicrobial Research Collaborative (ARC) has been described as one of the world’s most ambitious collaborations to tackle the rise of drug resistant infections. At the official launch Imperial's President, Professor Alice Gast, welcomed VIPs including the UK Government's Chief Medical Officer, Professor Dame Sally Davies and Sir Richard Sykes, Chairman of the Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust.

Imperial's interdisciplinary initiative is focused on tackling the growing challenge of infectious diseases particularly those caused by microbes that have become resistant to existing drugs.  For example, in some parts of the world, doctors face strains of tuberculosis and gonorrhoea that are essentially untreatable. In the fight against malaria, experts report that there are now just one or two antimalarial drugs that remain effective. And in UK hospitals there have been isolated outbreaks of highly resistant bacteria, known as Carbapenem Resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE), which is a rapidly growing international threat.

Alison Holmes, of the National Institute for Health Research Health Protection Research Unit in Healthcare Acquired Infection and Antimicrobial Resistance, is the ARC champion. She had this to say at the launch:

"Working together as a global research community is the only way we are going to prevent a return to the pre-antibiotic era, when simple infections could be life-threatening. Also, the success of many of our medical and surgical advances is completely dependent on ensuring that patients are protected from the risk of infection. These could grind to a halt if we can't control disease-causing microbes. Our efforts are needed, not only in drug development, but to find alternatives to antibiotics and ways to use them better. We must also develop better preventive strategies; faster and more accurate diagnostics; and improved surveillance and infection control."

The NIHR HPRU in HCAI and AMR’s own Enrique Castro Sanchez and Gabriel Birgand were awarded early career research fellowships at the launch event.