Imperial researchers awarded funding as part of £54m UK investment to tackle biosecurity threats

Two projects led by Imperial College London researchers have received funding as part of a major £54 million joint UK government and UKRI investment to tackle some of the most pressing biosecurity threats facing human, animal, and plant health.

The investment, coordinated through UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) with co-funding from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), and the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC), will support 18 new research and innovation projects across the UK. Projects span epidemic preparedness, antimicrobial resistance (AMR), and next-generation veterinary vaccine development.

The scale of the threats these projects address is already clear. Around one in six laboratory-confirmed bacterial infections worldwide were resistant to antibiotics in 2023, while ash dieback alone is estimated to cost Britain around £15 billion. Mosquito-borne diseases including dengue, Zika and chikungunya cost at least $94.7 billion globally between 1975 and 2020.

Imperial's projects

CARMA: The Coselection of Antimicrobial Resistance by Metals Alliance

Project Lead: Professor Shiranee Sriskandan

Funding stream: Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) 

Professor Shiranee Sriskandan leads the CARMA project, which explores how changes in the environment may drive antimicrobial resistance. The project will investigate how non-antibiotic pollutants like heavy metals contribute to the selection and spread of resistant bacteria in the environment, and how that might spread to bacteria that can live in humans.

Bacteria are constantly exposed to environmental pressures, which helps the development of genes that respond to and resist toxic environments. This is a selection process is often described as ‘survival of the fittest’. Co-selection refers to the possibility that a bacterium might have more than one type of resistance, for example to antibiotics and to metals, meaning that exposure to either antibiotics or metals alone could select for both traits, sustaining and amplifying AMR. Modern studies have found both metal resistance and antibiotic resistance genes co-located in different bacterial communities, particularly in highly polluted areas. Importantly, this includes both environmental bacteria and bacteria that can cause disease.

The project brings together researchers from Imperial College London's Centre for Bacterial Resistance Biology, including members of Imperial’s Department of Life Sciences, Durham University, the University of Birmingham, Pondicherry University, and the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi to determine what environmental conditions are most likely to encourage metal co-selection of AMR. They will also confirm if gene transfer between environmental and disease-causing bacteria is possible, determine how this contributes to the ongoing healthcare AMR crisis, and identify interventions to reduce these risks.

Professor Shiranee Sriskandan from the Department of Infectious Disease and Co-Director of Imperial’s Centre for Bacterial Resistance Biology said: “We need to understand how new highly resistant bacteria end up in healthcare. AMR genes are not man-made - they can move between bacteria and be shuffled around on the same bits of DNA as metal resistance genes; fieldwork in the environment shows this is happening. We want to prevent these clusters of resistance genes spreading from environmental bacteria to bacteria that can live in humans and creating new AMR clones. Understanding how to do that is a challenge. Limiting or cleaning up sewage contamination might be one solution, but we also need to understand the extent to which use of metals in farming or healthcare might pose a risk in propagating AMR from the environment to the clinic.”

fAMR-AIR: A One Health Research Programme to Confront Airborne Fungal Antimicrobial Resistance

Project Lead: Professor Matthew Fisher

Funding stream: Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) 

Professor Matthew Fisher leads fAMR-AIR, a One Health research programme focused on airborne fungal antimicrobial resistance. The team will identify the factors that cause the emergence of hotspots of fungal antimicrobial resistance in the UK.

Airborne spores from disease-causing moulds emerge in crop waste and composts, then travel through the air to people. Over five years, fAMR-AIR will map where these resistance 'hotspots' arise across UK farms, composting sites and homes, and test practical ways to reduce them. Working with farmers, the composting industry, regulators and patient groups, the team will use the findings to co-develop an action plan to better manage the rise of airborne fungal resistance.

Professor Matthew Fisher, Professor of Fungal Disease Epidemiology in the School of Public Health said: “Fungal drug resistance is a hidden side of the antimicrobial resistance crisis. The same chemicals that protect our crops are undermining the drugs that protect our patients, and resistant spores are already in the air we breathe. This funding lets us move from documenting the problem to fixing it, by working with farmers, composters and policymakers to find solutions that safeguard both food security and human health."

Both Imperial projects sit within the AMR funding stream, which has a total budget of £15.5 million and is co-funded by UKRI, NIHR and Defra.

A coordinated response to interconnected threats

The wider investment brings together expertise from biology, public health, social science, artificial intelligence, environmental research and veterinary science, taking a One Health approach that recognises the links between human, animal and environmental health.

UKRI Executive Champion for Tackling Infections and BBSRC Executive Chair, Professor Anne Ferguson-Smith, said: "This investment reflects UKRI's central role in delivering government priorities and our long-standing commitment to convening and working with partners across government to fund vital One Health research into human, animal, and plant health.

"By pooling expertise from across the research and innovation ecosystem in the UK and globally, we can tackle related infectious disease challenges in a more coordinated way to get ahead of emerging biological threats and help protect people, animals, plants and the environment, both in the UK and internationally. Ultimately, it will advance knowledge, improve lives, and drive growth."

About the investment

The £54 million investment is divided across three funding streams:

Epidemic Preparedness — £25.6 million, co-funded by UKRI, FCDO and Defra

Antimicrobial Resistance — £15.5 million, co-funded by UKRI, NIHR and Defra

Veterinary Vaccinology — £13.1 million, co-funded by UKRI and Defra 

The funding will generate new knowledge, tools and technologies that improve the UK's and international capacity to prevent and respond to future biological threats, supporting earlier detection of emerging risks, better evidence for policy and decision-making, and faster, more adaptable vaccine and other innovative technologies.