Development of Key Technologies for Real-Time Diagnosis, Surveillance and Interventionof Resistant-Bacterial Infections Based on Nanopore Sequencing

The proposed project aims to tackle two of the major hurdles in the fight against AMR, new drugs and new

diagnostics. The new diagnostics will utilise cutting edge UK technology (Oxford Nanopore sequencing) to

provide test results with unprecedented depth of information within 6 hours as opposed to the current

technologies which routinely take 24-48 hours. The approach to new drugs entails developing "Potentiators" -

agents that can permeabilise the cell wall of bacteria allowing the use of established antibacterial compounds.

The Potentiators in this project target Gram-negative (OPT-200) and Gram-positive (OPT-1) bacteria and both

have novel modes of actions representing first-in-class antibacterial programmes. The focus of this project will

be on Hospital Acquired Pneumonia (HAP) and subset of HAP Ventilator Acquired Pneumonia (VAP). HAP/VAP

are important infections throughout the world and are a major cause of morbidity, mortality and increases in

hospital stay resulting in escalation of healthcare costs. The long-term goals of this project are to provide rapid

diagnosis technology for HAP/VAP that can be combined with a potentiator treatment regime.

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