Engineering, Physical, Natural Sciences and Medicine Bridging Research in Antimicrobial resistance: Collaboration and Exchange (EMBRACE)
Lead Research Organisation:
Imperial College London
Department Name: Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Abstract
This project consists of a two year programme which aims to bridge the gap between Engineering, Natural Sciences and Physical Sciences and AMR Research. The purpose of the programme is to try and engage these disciplines in multidisciplinary research which is important and relevant in tackling the catastrophic threat that antimicrobial resistance poses. The programme is principally designed to develop a cohort of interdisciplinary research fellows who through the programme, will develop a unique set of hybrid research skills, a positive attitude to multidisciplinary research and the ability to communicate across traditional academic boundaries. We aim that these individuals will become the potential future leaders in multidisciplinary research into AMR. Supporting this main aim, are a range of activities designed to bridge the gaps between disciplines, encourage researchers in different disciplines to engage in collaborative AMR research while also providing valuable learning experiences for the fellows. Activities include developing a virtual network for AMR research, organising conferences and seminars, a sandpit exercise and supporting pump-primed AMR projects.
Planned Impact
The aim of this programme of research is to deliver a cohort of multidisciplinary researchers in AMR with the potential to become leaders in cross-discipline working. The aim of this capacity building and the associated activities are to stimulate research into AMR. The societal and economic costs of AMR are difficult to quantify, they include the health and economic burdens for the individual, their dependants, employers, businesses and the wider economy. In 2009, it was estimated by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) that AMR costed the EU about 1.5 billion Euro in healthcare expenses and lost productivity each year.
Reductions in treatment failure through improved diagnostics, technologies to support more appropriate prescribing or better clinical management facilitated through improved surveillance and data-linkage would reduce the instances of AMR and its associated costs. It is possible that such advances may result in the future from our initial-stage development of discipline-spanning fellows, equipped to tackle the challenges of AMR in a multifaceted, integrated way.
The small pump-priming projects which will be funded as part of the programme may also have a more immediate impact on AMR. It is our ambition that as many of these as possible should be translational - i.e based on real problems at the diagnostic bench or the patient bedside, with a clear aim of ultimately bringing some practical benefit to the NHS or other agencies with a role to play in addressing AMR. The beneficiaries of such work should therefore be clinicians, other healthcare workers and policy makers and through them, the general public under their care. It is hoped that the partnerships made available through the HPRU will greatly facilitate the translation of any relevant innovation or findings, into our local NHS or into policy formulation at the PHE with some resulting impact on clinical care
In addition to the economic benefits which would accrue from a reduction in AMR on any level, there is also potential economic benefit should any of the research conducted as part of the pump-priming projects or any research conducted as a result of grant applications submitted by partnerships established through this initiative, be developed into a marketable product. Imperial College has a well-established technology transfer arm and Professor Toumazou has an existing portfolio of spin-out companies which hold over 50 patents and employ over 350 people. It is therefore possible that research resulting from this initiative may also see academia operating as an engine for economic growth among SMEs if they led to the development of start up companies.
Reductions in treatment failure through improved diagnostics, technologies to support more appropriate prescribing or better clinical management facilitated through improved surveillance and data-linkage would reduce the instances of AMR and its associated costs. It is possible that such advances may result in the future from our initial-stage development of discipline-spanning fellows, equipped to tackle the challenges of AMR in a multifaceted, integrated way.
The small pump-priming projects which will be funded as part of the programme may also have a more immediate impact on AMR. It is our ambition that as many of these as possible should be translational - i.e based on real problems at the diagnostic bench or the patient bedside, with a clear aim of ultimately bringing some practical benefit to the NHS or other agencies with a role to play in addressing AMR. The beneficiaries of such work should therefore be clinicians, other healthcare workers and policy makers and through them, the general public under their care. It is hoped that the partnerships made available through the HPRU will greatly facilitate the translation of any relevant innovation or findings, into our local NHS or into policy formulation at the PHE with some resulting impact on clinical care
In addition to the economic benefits which would accrue from a reduction in AMR on any level, there is also potential economic benefit should any of the research conducted as part of the pump-priming projects or any research conducted as a result of grant applications submitted by partnerships established through this initiative, be developed into a marketable product. Imperial College has a well-established technology transfer arm and Professor Toumazou has an existing portfolio of spin-out companies which hold over 50 patents and employ over 350 people. It is therefore possible that research resulting from this initiative may also see academia operating as an engine for economic growth among SMEs if they led to the development of start up companies.
Organisations
- Imperial College London (Lead Research Organisation)
- University of Technology Sydney (Collaboration)
- Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust (Collaboration)
- Royal Institution of Great Britain (Collaboration)
- University of Southern California (Collaboration)
- University of Surrey (Collaboration)
- National University of Singapore (Collaboration)
- UNIVERSITY OF LIVERPOOL (Collaboration)
- Waters Corporation (Collaboration)
- IMPERIAL COLLEGE LONDON (Collaboration)
- KING'S COLLEGE LONDON (Collaboration)
Publications
Rawson TM
(2018)
Development of a patient-centred intervention to improve knowledge and understanding of antibiotic therapy in secondary care.
in Antimicrobial resistance and infection control
Lim CSQ
(2019)
Identification of a potent small-molecule inhibitor of bacterial DNA repair that potentiates quinolone antibiotic activity in methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.
in Bioorganic & medicinal chemistry
Rawson TM
(2016)
Mapping the decision pathways of acute infection management in secondary care among UK medical physicians: a qualitative study.
in BMC medicine
Rebollo-Ramirez S
(2018)
Intact Cell Lipidomics Reveal Changes to the Ratio of Cardiolipins to Phosphatidylinositols in Response to Kanamycin in HeLa and Primary Cells.
in Chemical research in toxicology
Rawson T
(2021)
A Real-world Evaluation of a Case-based Reasoning Algorithm to Support Antimicrobial Prescribing Decisions in Acute Care
in Clinical Infectious Diseases
Rawson TM
(2017)
A systematic review of clinical decision support systems for antimicrobial management: are we failing to investigate these interventions appropriately?
in Clinical microbiology and infection : the official publication of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases
Larrouy-Maumus G
(2019)
Lipids as Biomarkers of Cancer and Bacterial Infections.
in Current medicinal chemistry
Giraud-Gatineau A
(2020)
The antibiotic bedaquiline activates host macrophage innate immune resistance to bacterial infection
in eLife
Pallett SJ
(2022)
Variability in detection of SARS-CoV-2-specific antibody responses following mild infection: a prospective multicentre cross-sectional study, London, United Kingdom, 17 April to 17 July 2020.
in Euro surveillance : bulletin Europeen sur les maladies transmissibles = European communicable disease bulletin
Sohbati M
(2015)
Personalized Microchips for Health Care
in IEEE Potentials
| Title | "Infection Investigator" game to show multidisciplinary approach to AMR |
| Description | In the 5th annual Imperial festival EMBRACE ran the "Infection Investigator" in the Superbug Zone. This was an interactive game that took participants on a journey from spotting infection symptoms, to what the appropriate treatment for that particular infection was. All three Faculties involved in EMBRACE where present (Medicine, Engineering and Natural Sciences) and we had around 200 participants over the weekend. |
| Type Of Art | Artistic/Creative Exhibition |
| Year Produced | 2016 |
| Impact | The interactive game took participants on a journey from spotting infection symptoms, to where to seek appropriate healthcare, to the name of the disease, the pathogen responsible and finally what the appropriate treatment for that particular infection was. Identifying the correct combinations completed electrical circuits to power light bulbs or motors, providing visual real-time feedback on their decisions. The game focused on three different pathogens responsible for many common infections (viruses, bacteria and fungi); fun facts and information on the differences between these microorganisms were also provided. The design proved to be extremely popular, especially for families, with around 200 participants over the weekend. The game was designed to represent how the three Faculties (Medicine, Engineering and Natural Sciences) involved in the EMBRACE program can combine to tackle problems associated with Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR). This event successfully provided learning experiences for the Bridging The Gap fellows through cross-disciplinary interaction. This event gave our fellows a wider audience outside their discipline/department, it was a unique opportunity to break down barriers and encourage engagement from the students and general public, bringing visibility to the research being done in AMR at the Imperial College. |
| Title | Promoting Immune Clearance of Bacterial Pathogens - EMBRACE Sandpit award game |
| Description | A game that explains the concept behind the project was developed to enhance public-engagement activities. |
| Type Of Art | Artefact (including digital) |
| Year Produced | 2017 |
| Impact | This game has been used widely in engagement activities and it has helped to stimulate significant changes in public perception about the concept behind the project |
| Description | This award is a bridging the gaps fund aimed at facilitating cross-disciplinary collaboration and research in Antimicrobial resistance. As part of this award we have: 1. Conducted a first pump priming call on January 2016, where we awarded two pump-priming grants (£10K each) to cross-faculty teams who took part in our pump-priming competition, and which received 6 entries. The successful projects involve new collaborations between researchers from at least two of our three science faculties. The conditions for the awards include the development of consequent full research proposals and the further interdisciplinary development of the EMBRACE Fellows, as well as demonstrating creativity. First project: 'Targeting quadruplex-DNA in the promoters of genes associated to antimicrobial resistance' (AMR). This is a collaboration between Faculties of Medicine and Natural Science at Imperial College London + Institute of Pharmacy at Kings College London. Second project: 'Rapid Evaporative Ionisation Mass Spectrometry for the Early Detection of Antimicrobial Resistance'. This is a collaboration between all three science faculties: Engineering, Natural Science and Medicine. 2. Conducted a second pump priming call on September 2016, where we awarded three pump-priming grants (£10K each) to cross-faculty teams who took part in our pump-priming competition, and which received 11 entries. The successful projects involve new collaborations between researchers from at least two of our three science faculties. The conditions for the awards include the development of consequent full research proposals, further interdisciplinary development of the EMBRACE Fellows, as well as demonstrating creativity and new consortium formation. First project: "Antimicrobial resistance in gut communities". This collaboration is multi-disciplinary involving the Faculties of Medicine and Natural Science at Imperial College London at Imperial College London. Second project: "LIPID-MINDS: Lipid Mapping to Identify Novel Drug Solutions". This is a highly multi-disciplinary project between the Faculties of Medicine and Natural Sciences at Imperial College London and involving the School of Veterinary Medicine, University of Surrey. Third project: Real-time Enhanced Antimicrobial ConTroller (REACT). This is a collaboration between all three science faculties: Engineering, Natural Science and Medicine. 3. Conducted a Sandpit event on July 2016 which awarded one grant (£15K) to the following project: "Promoting Immune Clearance of Bacterial Pathogens". This award is a multidisciplinary collaboration from all three science faculties: Engineering, Natural Science and Medicine. This was a result of a two-day event with over 30 investigators from Imperial College and Universities of Newcastle, Surrey and Warwick gathered at the South Kensington Campus to participate in our first EPSRC supported EMBRACE Sandpit to propose innovative solutions to address the challenge of Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR). 4. Run our first conference entitled Multidisciplinary Approaches to Tackling AMR, 9th March 2016. This was heavily oversubscribed - 137 delegates registered for 100 places. This engaged researchers across Imperial, industry representatives and researchers from other institutions including other ERSRC Bridging the Gaps projects. The conference was opened by the President of IC and closed by the Provost. We have tracked new associations arising from the conference participation within days of the event (http://www.imperial.ac.uk/arc/embrace/conference-9-march-2016/). Currently we are also working on the "Technology vs Infectious Diseases: An Imperial College / Royal Institution Summit". The Summit will be held at the Royal Institution's historic home in Mayfair, London on 26 September 2017. The Summit will feature two panel discussions featuring some of the foremost thinkers who are tackling the global challenge of infectious diseases. Between sessions there will be time to chat to researchers who will be presenting their latest findings. Following the afternoon presentations, the evening will be given over to a keynote address, given by a world-renowned figure. The evening will be hosted by Sir Richard Sykes, Chair of the Royal Institution and former Rector of Imperial College. |
| Exploitation Route | Outcomes so far include: 1. We have hired 3 cross-disciplinary fellows, one in Engineering, one in Chemistry and one in Medicine and the events scheduled in this award are facilitating their development towards independent research careers and applying for EPSRC fellowships. Our fellows are becoming increasingly active in the emergent network of EPSRC Bridging the Gaps projects. 2. We have awarded five pump priming awards and a sandpit award to generate crossdisciplinary-collaboration within the Faculties of Imperial for new research in AMR. The outputs of these will be pilot date for larger collaborative grants in AMR. 3. We have run our first of two conferences which has enable cross-disciplinary networking within the field of AMR and formation of new collaborations. 4. Successfully engaging the Royal Institution to organise a summit on AMR. This event will be a great showcase for the research being done at Imperial College London and will increase the profile of AMR and multidisciplinary research. 5. Real-time Enhanced Antimicrobial ConTroller (REACT). This multidisciplinary pump priming project from Medicine, Electronic Engineering, Bioengineering, and Chemistry already received further funding which will see it developed and applied in the clinic. Further details under the relevant section form. |
| Sectors | Agriculture, Food and Drink,Chemicals,Communities and Social Services/Policy,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Education,Electronics,Environment,Healthcare,Manufacturing, including Industrial Biotechology,Pharmaceuticals and Medical Biotechnology |
| URL | http://www.imperial.ac.uk/arc/embrace/ |
| Description | This award has sparked a wealth of new collaborations and networks bringing together researchers from a range of disciplines to work together to tackle antimicrobial resistance using multifaceted approaches. EMBRACE has been used by the EPSRC as an exemplar of multidisciplinary working. We have also engaged with industry, the public and a range of other stakeholders. The EMBRACE grant has been instrumental in supporting the Antimicrobial Research Collaborative 'ARC@Imperial' by co-hosting large events and seminars. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2017 |
| Sector | Electronics,Healthcare,Manufacturing, including Industrial Biotechology,Pharmaceuticals and Medical Biotechnology |
| Impact Types | Societal |
| Description | "Infection Investigator" game to show multidisciplinary approach to AMR - Annual Imperial Festival |
| Geographic Reach | Local/Municipal/Regional |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | The Imperial festival is open to the public in general, so all visitors to the festival had the chance to participate in the activity, this included students and their families.The game was designed to be played as a team and proved to be extremely popular, especially for families, with around 200 participants over the weekend. Another purpose of this activity was to show how the three Faculties (Medicine, Engineering and Natural Sciences) involved in the EMBRACE program can combine to tackle problems associated with Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR). Important points of discussion included recognising that flu is caused by a virus and as a result is not susceptible to antibiotic treatment and increasing the awareness on the different types of infection and what treatments are appropriate for each. The interactive game took participants on a journey from spotting infection symptoms, to where to seek appropriate healthcare, to the name of the disease, the pathogen responsible and finally what the appropriate treatment for that particular infection was. Identifying the correct combinations completed electrical circuits to power light bulbs or motors, providing visual real-time feedback on their decisions. The game focused on three different pathogens responsible for many common infections (viruses, bacteria and fungi); fun facts and information on the differences between these microorganisms were also provided. This event successfully provided learning experiences for the Bridging The Gap fellows through cross-disciplinary interaction. It gave our fellows a wider audience outside their discipline/department, it was a unique opportunity to break down barriers and encourage engagement from the students and general public, bringing visibility to the research being done in AMR at the Imperial College. |
| Description | Antimicrobial Resistance & Global Health day @ Faculty of Medicine |
| Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Description | Dr. Lindsay Evans, EMBRACE Bridging the Gaps fellow as a scientific advisor on a "story" based around a chemist working in AMR research commissioned by the Royal Society of Chemistry |
| Geographic Reach | Local/Municipal/Regional |
| Policy Influence Type | Participation in a guidance/advisory committee |
| Description | EMBRACE Sandpit |
| Geographic Reach | Local/Municipal/Regional |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Description | Gp2 project - Contribution from one Bridging the Gaps fellow to the project includes the recruitment and supervision of Drug discovery and Development MRes student |
| Geographic Reach | Local/Municipal/Regional |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Description | Promoting Immune clearance in Bacterial Infections (Sandpit award) - Contribution from one of the Bridging the Gaps fellows to project includes the recruitment and supervision of Drug discovery and Development MRes student |
| Geographic Reach | Local/Municipal/Regional |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Description | Successfully appointed three high calibre interdisciplinary fellows, with maximum exposure to the field of AMR in each discipline (Engineering, Physical and Natural Sciences, Medicine), |
| Geographic Reach | Local/Municipal/Regional |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Description | Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) Capital Call |
| Amount | £4,047,193 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | NIHR200646 |
| Organisation | National Institute for Health Research |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 09/2019 |
| End | 08/2021 |
| Description | BBSRC DTP grant - PHD Studentship Grant |
| Amount | £70,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 10/2017 |
| End | 10/2020 |
| Description | Efficacy and Mechanism Evaluation Programme (EME) Medical Research Council (MRC) |
| Amount | £1,469,490 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Medical Research Council (MRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | |
| Description | Global Challanges Research Fund |
| Amount | £209,169 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 07/2016 |
| End | 03/2017 |
| Description | Mérieux Research Grant |
| Amount | € 100,000 (EUR) |
| Organisation | Merieux Institute |
| Sector | Private |
| Country | France |
| Start | |
| Description | Promoting Immune Clearance of Bacterial Pathogens - EMBRACE Sandpit award - Funding to further validate the DNA repair complexes described above as valid antibacterial targets. |
| Amount | £576,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Shionogi & Co., Ltd. |
| Sector | Private |
| Country | Japan |
| Start | |
| Description | Wellcome Trust Innovator Award |
| Amount | £749,259 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Wellcome Trust |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 06/2020 |
| End | 05/2023 |
| Description | Wellcome Trust Pathfinder award for "Selective targeting of drug-resistant pathogens without affecting the microbiota" |
| Amount | £125,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Wellcome Trust |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 03/2017 |
| End | 12/2018 |
| Title | EMBRACE pump priming project: LIPID-MINDS: Lipid Mapping to Identify Novel Drug Solutions - DESI imaging |
| Description | DESI imaging of infect lung tissues represents a very strong based to further understanding of the biology and pathogenesis of Tb and will certainly help and enable successful application for larger grants application. In addition, this EMBRACE pump priming project was able to develop a new methodology to assess antibiotics toxicity using intact cell lipidomics. Also, MALDI MS on intact cells to assess mitochondria dysregulation. |
| Type Of Material | Technology assay or reagent |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | This pump priming project funded by EMBRACE was able to develop a new methodology to assess antibiotics toxicity using intact cell lipidomics. DESI imaging of infect lung tissues represents a very strong based to further understanding of the biology and pathogenesis of Tuberculosis |
| Title | Promoting Immune Clearance of Bacterial Pathogens - EMBRACE Sandpit award |
| Description | Development of new chemical synthetic routes and new in vitro and in vivo assays of DNA repair. This will enable both targeted drug development and high-throughput drug screening. |
| Type Of Material | Biological samples |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | This will enable both targeted drug development and high-throughput drug screening. |
| Title | Promoting Immune Clearance of Bacterial Pathogens - EMBRACE Sandpit award |
| Description | We have also generated new tools to underpin the development of small molecule inhibitors, including recombinant protein target complexes and fluorescent reporter strains. |
| Type Of Material | Biological samples |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | These will enable both optimisation of existing inhibitors and screening for additional chemical series. |
| Title | Rapid Evaporative Ionisation Mass Spectrometry for the Early Detection of Antimicrobial Resistance |
| Description | Professor Zoltan Takats pump priming award utilises a novel, real-time mass spectrometry technology (Rapid Evaporative Ionisation Mass Spectrometry (REIMS)) in two ways: firstly, to identify drug resistant isolates from bacterial colonies, and secondly, to directly analyse clinical samples for biomarkers of infection using a point of care device. Both these approaches will have a significant impact on clinical care and will also prevent empirical and, in many cases, unnecessary antibiotic prescriptions-which are major drivers of antibiotic resistance. Throughout the project a number of developments were completed to expand its analytical capability. These included methods for the reaction-free fragmentation of phospholipid-linked fatty acids, and continuous analysis of microbial culture plates to determine antibiotic susceptibilities |
| Type Of Material | Technology assay or reagent |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | These methods have proved fundamental in the successful completion of work funded by EMBRACE to date. We envisage that they will be of interest to the wider research and clinical community, and we will share our developed methods through publication in the relevant literature and through presentations at academic research conferences. |
| Title | Real-time Enhanced Antimicrobial ConTroller |
| Description | A novel method of precision antimicrobial delivery utilising a closed-loop control system integrating a novel continuous minimally invasive antimicrobial sensor. This allows real-time assessment of antimicrobial levels to guide a closed-loop controller (e.g. PID, MPC or iterative learning control), which optimises the delivery of antimicrobial agents through direct communication and adjustment of an infusion pump. |
| Type Of Material | Technology assay or reagent |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | The development and validation of a closed-loop control system for the delivery of precision antimicrobial dosing, based on personalised PK-PD targets will provide the optimal dose of antimicrobial agent to treat the patient's infection, whilst preventing the development of resistance or toxicity. This has the potential to improve patient outcomes, reduce rates of toxicity and development of AMR, and potentially reduce the costs of therapy through reducing antimicrobial consumption and lengths of stay in hospita |
| Title | Rapid Evaporative Ionisation Mass Spectrometry for the Early Detection of Antimicrobial Resistance |
| Description | This work identified a number of biomarkers which are indicative or whether a S. aureus isolate is resistant or sensitive to methicillin |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | So far, this EMBRACE funded project has been successful in the direct-from-culture determination of methicillin susceptibility in Staphylococcus aureus without exposure to antibiotics. This work identified a number of biomarkers which are indicative or whether a S. aureus isolate is resistant or sensitive to methicillin. This work is currently being prepared for publication, thereby releasing the mass spectral datasets, and classification models into the wider scientific community to allow others to utilise it in their own work. These datasets and models are also proving fundamental in our own work by providing a framework on which to complete further analysis of different bacterial/fungal species for antibiotic susceptibilities. |
| Description | "Antimicrobial resistance in gut communities" |
| Organisation | Imperial College London |
| Department | Department of Life Sciences |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | In this project the team will directly observe how antibiotics drive interactions between AMR and anti-microbial sensitive (AMS) genes and how they affect metabolic function in human gut microbial communities. Caroline Colijn (CC) from the Dep of Mathematics leads a completely new collaboration between four departments in two faculties, Maryam Modarai (MM) EMBRACE Fellow; Department of Medicine; Lesley Hoyles (LH), Department of Surgery & Cancer and Nicholas Croucher (NC) from the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology The team has the combined expertise to use metagenomic tools to characterise AMR and AMS genes and plasmids (Lesley Hoyles, Nicholas Croucher, Caroline Colijn), to characterise metabolic functions (Maryam Modarai ; Lesley Hoyles) with NMR metabolomics, to develop state of the art mathematical characterisations and comparisons of these complex datasets (CC; LH) and to make resulting tools available to the community (Lesley Hoyles ; Caroline Colijn; Nicholas Croucher). |
| Collaborator Contribution | Our partners will produce novel methods for deep characterisation of metagenomic datasets, with a focus on the dynamics of AMR. Lesley Hoyles metagenomic pipeline at ICL is an ideal opportunity to build in Caroline Colijn's mathematical tools. (4) They will develop the tools to integrate metagenomic and metabolomic data to compare treated and untreated samples. An R package containing these extensions would be a key publishable outcome. (5). Our partners will model competition dynamics to predict effects of treatment for some samples using models developed on other samples, setting the stage for model-based design of optimal treatment in future studies. |
| Impact | Collaboration is multi-disciplinary involving Mathematics, Surgery & Cancer, Medicine and Infectious Diseases. An important outcome can be translated in the formation of a completely new collaboration between four departments in two faculties led by Caroline Colijn (CC) from the Dep of Mathematics. Key outcomes: Biological (1) direct observation and quantification of competition between AMR and AMS genes in clinically relevant bacterial communities would lead to a high impact publication in this field. Our determination of how individual genes are affected directly by the antibiotic or indirectly by complex community dynamics will also lead to new results on the function of microbial communities. (2) Our multiple perspective (metabolomics, metagenonomics, modelling) will give an unprecedented and rich view of the link between sequence, diversity and function for microbial communities under antibiotics. |
| Start Year | 2016 |
| Description | "LIPID-MINDS: Lipid Mapping to Identify Novel Drug Solutions" |
| Organisation | Imperial College London |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | EMBRACE researchers are using their skills in bacterial/host lipidomics and mass spectrometry to identify lipids as novel and specific targets for drug intervention in an unbiased fashion, which will be complemented by chemical intervention tools targeting inositol lipids. Desorption Electrospray Ionization Mass Spectrometry Imaging (DESI-MSI) provides an ideal MS imaging technique to examine the in situ spatial distribution of micro-organisms and related molecules within clinical samples. For this the EMBRACE team shall utilise existing fixed lung tissues from a TB mouse model together with macrophages (uninfected vs infected with pathogenic and non-pathogenic mycobacteria) from our in cellulo model and apply DESI to identify and locate lipids, within the tissue or cell, abundant only during infection (through comparison with normal tissue and uninfected macrophages). In parallel, this multidisciplinary team shall use our expertise medicinal chemistry to generate chemical intervention tools targeting inositol lipids. As proof-of-principle, this will be achieved by synthesizing the chemical compound PHDM, which targets the phosphoinositide PIP23. This will be complemented by commercially available chemical intervention tools targeting lipid metabolism. After optimisation (if required) the effect of these compounds on the virulence and infection of Mtb using in cellulo model systems will be tested. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Existing fixed lung tissues from TB infected animals from the University of Surrey (Prof Mark Chambers) and macrophages from the tissue culture of model of TB infection at ICL (Dr Gerald Larrouy-Maumus) will be prepared, optimised and analysed by mass spectrometry imaging at ICL (Prof Zoltan Takats, Dr Frankie Bolt, Dr Renata Soares). |
| Impact | Highly multi-disciplinary project led by Dr Gerald Larrouy-Maumus (GLM) from the Dep of Life Sciences and involving Prof Mark Chambers (MC) from the School of Veterinary Medicine (Uni Surrey), Chemistry and Surgery and Cancer. Prof Zoltan Takats/Dr Frankie Bolt / Dr Renata Soares (ZT, FB, RS) from the Dep of Surgery and Cancer. Dr Lindsay Evans (LE), EMBRACE Fellow/ Dr Rudiger Woscholski (RW)/ Prof Ramon Vilar (RV) from the Dep of Chemistry |
| Start Year | 2016 |
| Description | "LIPID-MINDS: Lipid Mapping to Identify Novel Drug Solutions" |
| Organisation | University of Surrey |
| Department | Advanced Technology Institute (ATI) |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | EMBRACE researchers are using their skills in bacterial/host lipidomics and mass spectrometry to identify lipids as novel and specific targets for drug intervention in an unbiased fashion, which will be complemented by chemical intervention tools targeting inositol lipids. Desorption Electrospray Ionization Mass Spectrometry Imaging (DESI-MSI) provides an ideal MS imaging technique to examine the in situ spatial distribution of micro-organisms and related molecules within clinical samples. For this the EMBRACE team shall utilise existing fixed lung tissues from a TB mouse model together with macrophages (uninfected vs infected with pathogenic and non-pathogenic mycobacteria) from our in cellulo model and apply DESI to identify and locate lipids, within the tissue or cell, abundant only during infection (through comparison with normal tissue and uninfected macrophages). In parallel, this multidisciplinary team shall use our expertise medicinal chemistry to generate chemical intervention tools targeting inositol lipids. As proof-of-principle, this will be achieved by synthesizing the chemical compound PHDM, which targets the phosphoinositide PIP23. This will be complemented by commercially available chemical intervention tools targeting lipid metabolism. After optimisation (if required) the effect of these compounds on the virulence and infection of Mtb using in cellulo model systems will be tested. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Existing fixed lung tissues from TB infected animals from the University of Surrey (Prof Mark Chambers) and macrophages from the tissue culture of model of TB infection at ICL (Dr Gerald Larrouy-Maumus) will be prepared, optimised and analysed by mass spectrometry imaging at ICL (Prof Zoltan Takats, Dr Frankie Bolt, Dr Renata Soares). |
| Impact | Highly multi-disciplinary project led by Dr Gerald Larrouy-Maumus (GLM) from the Dep of Life Sciences and involving Prof Mark Chambers (MC) from the School of Veterinary Medicine (Uni Surrey), Chemistry and Surgery and Cancer. Prof Zoltan Takats/Dr Frankie Bolt / Dr Renata Soares (ZT, FB, RS) from the Dep of Surgery and Cancer. Dr Lindsay Evans (LE), EMBRACE Fellow/ Dr Rudiger Woscholski (RW)/ Prof Ramon Vilar (RV) from the Dep of Chemistry |
| Start Year | 2016 |
| Description | "Promoting Immune Clearance of Bacterial Pathogens" |
| Organisation | Imperial College London |
| Department | Department of Mathematics |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | The aim of this proposal is to develop small molecule inhibitors of a specific DNA-repair complex that can be used prophylactically or therapeutically to promote immune clearance of bacterial pathogens and reduce the emergence of drug-resistant pathogens. This is being achieved by harnessing the diverse skillset of the research team, together with highly promising preliminary data from the lead investigator's laboratory. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Our partners will undertake studies on the interactions of bacterial pathogens with immune cells in the presence of our candidate molecules to characterise any changes in host cell function, and lung lavage will be used to recover bacterial CFU to quantify immune clearance, and immune cells to assess the host response by transcriptomic analyses. |
| Impact | This is a multidisciplinary collaboration from Bacteriology, Single cell analysis, Immunology, Bioinformatics, Chemistry, Microbiome. This is the EMBRACE Sandpit award derived from a two day's event with over 30 investigators from Imperial College and Universities of Newcastle, Surrey and Warwick gathered at South Kensington Campus to participate at the first EPSRC-supported EMBRACE Sandpit to propose innovative solutions to address the Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) challenge. The two days of this intensive work and networking brought out great ideas from the participants, some of which where put forward for the second EMBRACE pump-priming call. One of groups created at this event had the opportunity to develop further their ideas and submit a new application (REACT) for our second pump-priming call. Further details under the relevant section form. |
| Start Year | 2016 |
| Description | "Rapid Evaporative Ionisation Mass Spectrometry for the Early Detection of Antimicrobial Resistance" |
| Organisation | Imperial College London |
| Department | Department of Chemistry |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | This project aims to utilise a novel, real-time mass spectrometry technology (Rapid Evaporative Ionisation Mass Spectrometry (REIMS)). This approach will have a significant impact on clinical care and will also prevent empirical and, in many cases, unnecessary antibiotic prescriptions-which are major drivers of antibiotic resistance. The group led by Dr Gerald Larrouy-Maumus, which focuses on mycobacterial adaptation within host cells, is providing extensive knowledge and expertise in bacterial cell-envelope lipids which has been demonstrated through the years in several peer-review journals. Dr Larrouy-Maumus would be responsible for identifying lipid peaks that were associated with AMR discrimination. In addition, Dr Pau Herrero will support the latter stages of the project through specialist knowledge in the decision support systems for the development of iagnostic technologies for clinical decision making pathways. Dr Maryam Modarai has extensive knowledge in metabolomics and molecular techniques and is providing pivotal input on MS analysis and PCR development. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The multidisciplinary team is led by Professor Takats and his research group who have extensive experience in analytical chemistry, the development of mass spectrometry based diagnostic technologies, clinical microbiology and molecular based methods including sequencing and PCR. The team also comprises the microbiology department within Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust (ICHNT) who provides expertise on the implementation of diagnostic platforms to improve clinical decision making pathways. |
| Impact | Collaboration is multi-disciplinary, evolving Life Sciences, Electrical and Electronic Engineering and Medicine. The proposed outcome of this project is to develop REIMS based protocols that can be used for AMR detection. It will be used to identify specific antimicrobial resistance mechanisms; thereby aiding timely treatment and infection control practices to be implemented. In the long term a rapid point of care device will be developed based upon the detection of bacterial species-specific biomarkers (instead of species-specific spectral patterns), which can be detected at trace levels in clinical samples. The completion of this project which will support an application for follow-on funding to allow development and implementation of the technology as a clinical point of care device: |
| Start Year | 2016 |
| Description | "Targeting quadruplex-DNA in the promoters of genes associated to antibacterial resistance" |
| Organisation | Imperial College London |
| Department | Department of Mathematics |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | The aim is to establish new targets in the future development of antibacterial agents.This project brings together three internationally-leading research groups through the collaboration Prof Ramon Vilar, Prof Alain Filloux and Dr K. Miraz Rahman, plus two EMBRANCE fellows with highly complementary expertise, Dr Evans and Dr. Modarai. The assembled team has not previously worked together and hence this is a great opportunity to establish a new collaboration to tackle antimicrobial resistance. To achieve the overall aim of the project, the following measureable milestones/objectives will be tackled: MILESTONE 1 (month 3): Establish via biophysical characterisation the formation of G-quadruplexes from murE and ftsB's promoters. For this, we will use short sequences (20-30 bases long) and carry out in vitro assays. (To be carried out in the Vilar lab with support from Dr Evans and Dr Rahman) ? MILESTONE 2 (month 6): Once biophysical characterisation is completed, luciferase assays (with wild type and mutated promoters) will be carried out to study the regulatory role of G-quadruplex DNA in these genes. (To be carried out in the Filloux lab with support from Dr Modarai and Prof Vilar) ? MILESTONE 3 (month 9): Demonstrate that small molecules known to target G-quadruplexes can stabilise this structure in the promoters of the genes under study and in doing so down-regulate their expression. (To be carried out using compound libraries available in Vilar and Rahman labs with support from Dr Evans) ? MILESTONE 4 (month 12): Show that downregulation of murE and/or ftsB by small molecules challenges bacterial survival and/or leads to re-sensitisation of resistant bacteria to a given antibiotic (To be carried out in the Filloux lab with support from Dr Modarai and Prof Vilar) |
| Collaborator Contribution | This project brings together three internationally leading research groups through the collaboration of Prof Ramon Vilar, Prof Alain Filloux and Dr K. Miraz Rahman. All the work is being done with the collaboration of EMBRACE Fellows Dr. Evans and Dr. Modarai. |
| Impact | This Collaboration is multi-disciplinary evolving Chemistry, Medicine, Pharmaceutical Sciences and the Institute of Pharmaceutical Science - King's College. The assembled team has not previously worked together and hence this is a great opportunity to establish a new collaboration to tackle antimicrobial resistance. |
| Start Year | 2016 |
| Description | ARC@Imperial |
| Organisation | Imperial College London |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | The EMBRACE programme is acting as a catalyst for AMR research at Imperial College, consolidating the existing relationships between engineering and medicine while also generating new collaborations to further the group-effort needed to deliver solutions to AMR. The creation of a cohort of experienced multidisciplinary researchers to work in the field of AMR is being done by offering funding through pump priming calls and a sandpit event, thus providing a focal point for developing collaborations and track record/pilot data for larger applications. The opportunities for cross-disciplinary interaction provided by EMBRACE are also helping the creation of role models and career paths for junior researchers from the ARC network with an interest in multidisciplinary research. All these activities are providing learning experiences for our Bridging The Gap fellows and allow for the dissemination of outcomes of the programme and the finding of our fellows. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The Antimicrobial Research Collaborative (ARC@Imperial) consolidates world leading, multidisciplinary research across Imperial College London to synergistically address the urgent global threat of antimicrobial resistance from a 'one health' perspective. Integrating research strengths at Imperial College London and within Imperial College Academic Health Sciences Centre, across healthcare partners, industrial collaborations, policy makers and public health organisations. This partnership between EMBRACE and ARC cemented the existing relationships between Engineering and the Physical and Natural Sciences while also generating new collaborations to further the group-effort needed to deliver solutions to AMR, sharing local and national linked data. The results are extremely positive having so far provided a focal point for developing collaborations through the participation on five pump priming multidisciplinary projects and a sandpit project, helping to create a cohort of experienced multidisciplinary researchers to work in the field of AMR, co-hosting of seminars and contributing for the creation of an on-line presence for multidisciplinary AMR though website links, twitter and digital content. |
| Impact | This collaboration is enabling the exploration of new approaches, novel applications and entirely new directions of research relevant to addressing the AMR problem. At the same time It has increased the number of submitted and funded multidisciplinary AMR research projects. By stimulating cross-discipline working, we ultimately hope to effect acceleration the development new diagnostics and increasing the knowledge base in relation to AMR and real work interactions through research which capitalises on the network capabilities in data-linkage, behaviour change and health economics. |
| Start Year | 2015 |
| Description | Collaboration with Prof William Hope on PK/PD modeling for precision antimicrobial delivery |
| Organisation | University of Liverpool |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Our team is investigating a novel method of precision antimicrobial delivery utilising a closed-loop control system integrating a novel continuous minimally invasive antimicrobial sensor. This allows real-time assessment of antimicrobial levels to guide a closed-loop controller (e.g. PID, MPC or iterative learning control), which optimises the delivery of antimicrobial agents through direct communication and adjustment of an infusion pump. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Prof Hope has been providing PK-PD support for the project (he is an expert in antimicrobial PK-PD). |
| Impact | Collaboration is Multi-Disciplinary - Dept. Infection - Dept. Chemistry - Dept. Bioengineering - Dept. EEE - Dept. Antimicrobial pharmacodynamics - Liverpool |
| Start Year | 2016 |
| Description | Collect clinical isolates of microorganisms |
| Organisation | Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Hospitals |
| PI Contribution | This project aims to utilise a novel, real-time mass spectrometry technology (Rapid Evaporative Ionisation Mass Spectrometry (REIMS)) in two ways: firstly, to identify drug resistant isolates from bacterial colonies, and secondly, to directly analyse clinical samples for biomarkers of infection using a point of care device. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Collaboration to collect clinical isolates of microorganisms, including those resistant to antimicrobials. |
| Impact | This is a multidisciplinary team led by Professor Takats and his research group who have extensive experience in analytical chemistry, the development of mass spectrometry based diagnostic technologies, clinical microbiology and molecular based methods including sequencing and PCR. The team also comprises the microbiology department within Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust (ICHNT) who is providing expertise on the implementation of diagnostic platforms to improve clinical decision making pathways. The group led by Dr Gerald Larrouy-Maumus, which focuses on mycobacterial adaptation within host cells, provides extensive knowledge and expertise in bacterial cell-envelope lipids which has been demonstrated through the years in several peer-review journals. Dr Pau Herrero one of the Bridging the Gaps fellows is supporting the latter stages of the project through specialist knowledge in the decision support systems for the development of diagnostic technologies for clinical decision making pathways. Dr Maryam Modarai, also one of the Bridging the Gaps fellows has extensive knowledge in metabolomics and molecular techniques and is providing pivotal input on MS analysis and PCR development. |
| Start Year | 2016 |
| Description | LIPID-MINDS: Lipid Mapping to Identify Novel Drug Solutions - Collaboration with UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY, SYDNEY |
| Organisation | University of Technology Sydney |
| Country | Australia |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | We are identifying and designing specific chemicals that will interfere with host-pathogen lipid metabolism during tuberculosis (TB) infection |
| Collaborator Contribution | Philip Doble | Professor of Analytical Chemistry, Director of Elemental Bio-imaging Facility School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences Faculty of Science at the UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY, SYDNEY is performing trace elements imaging on TB infected lung tissue to complement our lipidomics data. |
| Impact | This EMBRACE pump priming project clearly demonstrates and respects the multi-disciplinarily around AMR thank to the involvement of members from DoLS, DoC, Surgery and Cancer and University of Surrey, expert in Tb/microbiology, mass spectrometry, chemical synthesis and Tb pathogenesis. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | National University of Singapore |
| Organisation | National University of Singapore |
| Country | Singapore |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Joint grant application to MRC COVID-19 Rapid Response call - provided diagnostics capability to the application (awaiting outcome). |
| Collaborator Contribution | Joint grant application to MRC COVID-19 Rapid Response call - provided local infectious disease capacity to the application (awaiting outcome). |
| Impact | Joint grant application (outcome awaited) and plans for future collaborative work. This is multidisciplinary including bioengineering, infectious disease, artificial intelligence and epidemiology expertise. |
| Start Year | 2020 |
| Description | Novel Bacteriophage-Inspired Small Molecules as Inhibitors of Bacterial RNA Polymerase |
| Organisation | Imperial College London |
| Department | Plasma Physics Research Group |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Based on the research already carried out in Prof Wigneshweraraj's lab, Dr Lindsay Evans wrote a proposal for a 1 year MRes student to work on the project. We were successful in appointing a student, James Duncan, on the MRes in drug design and development program (https://www.imperial.ac.uk/study/pg/chemistry/drug-discovery-development/). Prof Alan Armstrong, Dr Lindsay Evans and Prof Wigneshweraraj's have been involved in the supervision and scientific direction of this project. |
| Collaborator Contribution | This project brings together collaborators from molecular microbiology (SW) and chemistry (LE and AA). James Duncan will work across both chemistry and microbiology, gaining skills and experience in both disciplines. |
| Impact | Recruitment of a MRes student to work on this project for 1 year. This collaboration is multi-disciplinary - molecular microbiology and chemistry. |
| Start Year | 2016 |
| Description | Partnership with NIHR Health Protection Research Unit in HCAI and AMR |
| Organisation | Imperial College London |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | The EMBRACE programme is providing organisational learning about the most appropriate ways to support and encourage interdisciplinary working. The adopted model of capacity building through the appointment of our Bridging the Gaps Fellows is stimulating cross-discipline working and providing a focal point for developing collaborations and at the same time creating learning experiences for the Bridging The Gap fellows. Another important contribution to this partnership from EMBRACE is the offering of pump priming funding. This has created more opportunities for cross-disciplinary interaction and allowed for projects outcomes which are relevant to AMR, providing pilot data for larger applications. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The Unit with its multidisciplinary programme has outstanding expertise in HCAI and AMR and access to resources including biobanks, local and national linked data and patient populations, all of which offer outstanding research opportunities currently being exploited by five pump priming projects and a sandpit project funded by EMBRACE. |
| Impact | By stimulating cross-discipline working, we are accelerating the development new diagnostics and increasing the knowledge base in relation to AMR and real work interactions through research which capitalises on the Unit's capabilities in data-linkage, behaviour change and health economics. The partnership between EMBRACE and HPRU is also enabling the development of a unique set of hybrid research skills from our Bridging the Gaps Fellows, a positive attitude to multidisciplinary research and the ability to communicate across traditional academic boundaries. This award is providing a impetus for greater engagement from researchers in Engineering and the Physical and Natural Sciences fields with the AMR agenda, due to the funding of five multidisciplinary pump priming projects and an extremely successful sandpit project which has already led to a successful application for external funding. We anticipate this leading to explorations of new approaches, novel applications and entirely new directions of research relevant to addressing AMR and an increase in the number of submitted and funded multidisciplinary AMR research projects. |
| Start Year | 2015 |
| Description | Prof Susan Butler-Wu - University of Southern California, USA |
| Organisation | University of Southern California |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | This project aims to utilise a novel, real-time mass spectrometry technology (Rapid Evaporative Ionisation Mass Spectrometry (REIMS)) in two ways: firstly, to identify drug resistant isolates from bacterial colonies, and secondly, to directly analyse clinical samples for biomarkers of infection using a point of care device. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Prof Susan Butler-Wu from the University of Southern California, USA is collaborating with Professor Zoltan Takats on using REIMS for the rapid detection of antimicrobial resistance across geographically diverse microbial isolates. |
| Impact | Collaboration is multi-disciplinary, evolving Life Sciences, Electrical and Electronic Engineering and Medicine. The proposed outcome of this project is to develop REIMS based protocols that can be used for AMR detection. This partnership was created through an EMBRACE pump priming award, thus following one of the main objectives of the program that is to provide a focal point for developing multidisciplinary collaborations, also, this partnership is providing learning experience to our Bridging the Gaps fellows and international cross-disciplinary interaction. |
| Start Year | 2016 |
| Description | Real-time Enhanced Antimicrobial ConTroller (REACT) |
| Organisation | Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Hospitals |
| PI Contribution | Our team is investigating a novel method of precision antimicrobial delivery utilising a closed-loop control system integrating a novel continuous minimally invasive antimicrobial sensor. This allows real-time assessment of antimicrobial levels to guide a closed-loop controller (e.g. PID, MPC or iterative learning control), which optimises the delivery of antimicrobial agents through direct communication and adjustment of an infusion pump. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Working within a multi-professional collaboration of experts in the fields of Medicine, Electronic Engineering, Bioengineering, and Chemistry; we hypothesise that the use of a closed-loop control system will improve the attainment of PK-PD targets for several beta-lactam antimicrobials, which have been demonstrated to require dose adjustment in up to 75% of patients in intensive care (ICU). |
| Impact | Multidisciplinary project from: Medicine, Electronic Engineering, Bioengineering, and Chemistry. This grant already won further funding from the Efficacy and Mechanism Evaluation Programme (EME), Medical Research Council (MRC). Further details under the relevant section form. |
| Start Year | 2016 |
| Description | Targeting quadruplex-DNA in the promoters of genes associated to antibacterial resistance |
| Organisation | King's College London |
| Department | Department of Neuroimaging |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | This project brings together three internationally-leading research groups and two EMBRANCE fellows, Dr Lindsay Evans (EMBRACE fellow) and Dr Maryam Modarai (EMBRACE fellow) with highly complementary expertise. The overall aim of this proof-of-concept project is to establish the regulatory roles that quadruplexes formed in the promoter regions of murE and ftsB have in the expression of these genes in P. aeruginosa. The ultimate aim is to establish new targets in the future development of antibacterial agents. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Dr K. Miraz Rahman will be working on establishing via biophysical characterisation the formation of G-quadruplexes from murE and ftsB's promoters. He will also be demonstrating that small molecules known to target G-quadruplexes can stabilise this structure in the promoters of the genes under study and in doing so down-regulate their expression. |
| Impact | The assembled team has not previously worked together and hence this is a great opportunity to establish a new multi-disciplinary collaboration to tackle antimicrobial resistance. With this pump priming award, EMBRACE is providing opportunities to engage with researchers outside Imperial College and at the same time being a focal point for the development of relevant collaborations in AMR research that generate pilot data for larger applications. |
| Start Year | 2016 |
| Description | Technology vs Infectious Diseases: An Imperial College / Royal Institution Summit |
| Organisation | The Royal Institution of Great Britain |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | The second EMBRACE conference is planned to take place on 26th Sept 2017, at the Royal Institution. As with all EMBRACE activities, our conference is designed to build multidisciplinary research capacity to tackle antimicrobial resistance (AMR). The conference will be focused on AMR to a scientific audience but also to the public in general. One of the main goals will also be to connect with institutions across the UK and internationally, giving EMBRACE the opportunity to establish more contacts for future applications The activities that run through the day will show the work being done by our Bridging the Gaps fellows in the field of AMR, since the start of the grant and our cross-disciplinary interaction in the pump priming projects currently underway. This will be a way to showcase the projects' research and establish contacts for future collaborations. With the purpose of increasing involvement of other disciplines, there will be opportunity to include the social sciences in a way to understand what the public want to know about AMR and behavior change. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The Summit will be held at the Royal Institution's historic home in Mayfair, London on 26 September 2017. For over 200 years, the Royal Institution has been the place where cutting edge science has been announced, discussed and disseminated, by both experts and the curious public. It's no surprise that the father of antibiotics, Alexander Fleming, gave a presentation to the Royal Institution on 27 November 1953. The Summit will feature two panel discussions featuring some of the foremost thinkers who are tackling the global challenge of infectious diseases. Between sessions there will be time to chat to researchers who will be presenting their latest findings. Following the afternoon presentations, the evening will be given over to a keynote address, given by a world renowned figure. The evening will be hosted by Sir Richard Sykes, Chair of the Royal Institution and former Rector of Imperial College. The R.I. is also keen in contributing to one of the main objectives of EMBRACE which is to create role models and career paths for future researchers. With this in mind, they want to coordinate an 'Unconference' event for students 16-18 years on the topic of AMR, this would be on a separate day in the lead up to or after the Conference. |
| Impact | Successfully engaging the Royal Institution to organise a conference about AMR. This event will be a great showcase for the research being done and will increase the profile of AMR and multidisciplinary research at Imperial College. Getting the opportunity to do the "Unconference" for students 16-18 years on AMR will enable to show the role models and career paths EMBRACE created for junior researchers with an interest in multidisciplinary research. With this partner EMBRACE guarantees a premium venue to showcase the work being done though the grant but also its engagement with other partners and its willingness to be a multidisciplinary project. |
| Start Year | 2016 |
| Description | Waters Corporation |
| Organisation | Waters Corporation |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | This project aims to utilise a novel, real-time mass spectrometry technology (Rapid Evaporative Ionisation Mass Spectrometry (REIMS)) in two ways: firstly, to identify drug resistant isolates from bacterial colonies, and secondly, to directly analyse clinical samples for biomarkers of infection using a point of care device. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Collaboration with Waters Corporation (UK/USA), who are manufacturers of mass spectrometers, to develop mass spectrometry platforms for clinical diagnostic microbiology, and other microbial testing sectors. |
| Impact | This is a multidisciplinary team led by Professor Takats and his research group who have extensive experience in analytical chemistry, the development of mass spectrometry based diagnostic technologies, clinical microbiology and molecular based methods including sequencing and PCR. The team also comprises the microbiology department within Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust (ICHNT) who is providing expertise on the implementation of diagnostic platforms to improve clinical decision making pathways. The group led by Dr Gerald Larrouy-Maumus, which focuses on mycobacterial adaptation within host cells, provides extensive knowledge and expertise in bacterial cell-envelope lipids which has been demonstrated through the years in several peer-review journals. Dr Pau Herrero one of the Bridging the Gaps fellows is supporting the latter stages of the project through specialist knowledge in the decision support systems for the development of diagnostic technologies for clinical decision making pathways. Dr Maryam Modarai, also one of the Bridging the Gaps fellows has extensive knowledge in metabolomics and molecular techniques and is providing pivotal input on MS analysis and PCR development. |
| Start Year | 2016 |
| Title | Novel compounds with antibacterial activity |
| Description | Dr. Andrews team has synthesised several novel compounds with antibacterial activity. Initial studies indicate activity against drug-resistant pathogens. To further support this work Dr. Andrews recently won the EMBRACE sandpit award. Further details under the relevant section form. |
| Type | Therapeutic Intervention - Drug |
| Current Stage Of Development | Initial development |
| Year Development Stage Completed | 2016 |
| Development Status | Under active development/distribution |
| Impact | Dr Andrews work takes a novel approach by increasing the susceptibility of bacteria to immune killing. Dr. Andrews team is providing proof-of-concept for new approaches to treating and preventing infection and provide the foundations for a new class of anti-infective drugs. Additional impact is arising from the training of a young group of researchers, contributing to the development of the next generation of independent AMR researchers. This work has relevance to studies of host-pathogen interactions, medicinal chemistry, single-cell analysis, studies on host-microbiota interactions and drug development. |
| Title | Real-time Enhanced Antimicrobial ConTroller (REACT) |
| Description | This is a pump priming project funded by EMBRACE aimed at the development and validation of a closed-loop control system for the delivery of precision antimicrobial dosing, based on personalised PK-PD targets will provide the optimal dose of antimicrobial agent to treat the patient's infection, whilst preventing the development of resistance or toxicity. This has the potential to improve patient outcomes, reduce rates of toxicity and development of AMR, and potentially reduce the costs of therapy through reducing antimicrobial consumption and lengths of stay in hospital. From January 2017 - June 2017 researchers will undertake a feasibility study of the sensor device on 10-20 patients allowing for calibration of the sensor against rich pharmacokinetic plasma samples. This will take place in the Clinical Research Facility at Imperial College London, Hammersmith Campus. |
| Type | Support Tool - For Medical Intervention |
| Current Stage Of Development | Initial development |
| Year Development Stage Completed | 2017 |
| Development Status | Under active development/distribution |
| Impact | The development and validation of a closed-loop control system for the delivery of precision antimicrobial dosing, based on personalised PK-PD targets will provide the optimal dose of antimicrobial agent to treat the patient's infection, whilst preventing the development of resistance or toxicity |
| Title | Real-time Enhanced Antimicrobial ConTroller (REACT) - Microneedle array device |
| Description | A microneedle array device has been fabricated and tested in the laboratory that can sense beta-lactam antibiotics in interstitial fluid. This has been calibrated for penicillin G, amoxicillin, piperacillin, and ceftriaxone so far. The device has now been prepared for testing in humans with an initial pilot study undertaken with a member of the team wearing the sensor for 6 hours, whilst taking penicillin V orally. The sensor demonstrated the ability to be able to respond to a bolus of penicillin as expected. Ethics is now in process to allow testing of the sensors in 10-15 healthy volunteers (planned to commence in January 2018). |
| Type | Support Tool - For Medical Intervention |
| Current Stage Of Development | Early clinical assessment |
| Year Development Stage Completed | 2017 |
| Development Status | Under active development/distribution |
| Impact | In parallel to this Medicine (Tim Rawson & Alison Holmes, EMBRACE PI) have worked with Electrical Engineering (Pantelis Georgiou,EMBRACE Co-Pi, and Pau Herrero EMBRACE Fellow) to develop a closed loop contol system for automated antimicrobial delivery. Pau Herrero has led this development with data and PK support provided by the department of medicine. This work is currently undergoing final revisions for publication following positive peer review. Furthermore, Dr Danny O'Hare has worked on the development of a physiological calibration rig with a summer intern. This work has now been given to a BSc student project to work on further developing the calibration rig and closed loop control systems that were described above. |
| Description | "Horizon scanning of diagnostic technologies for emerging infectious diseases and AMR" |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Dr. Jesus Rodriguez Manzano Research Fellow at the Centre for Bio-Inspired Technology engaged the audience with a talk about diagnostic technologies and how they can be used to fight emerging infectious diseases. Dr Manzano expertise in developing cutting edge point-of-care diagnostic technologies for infectious diseases stimulated the audience interest in AMR research and plans where made for future related activity between Dr Manzano and EMBRACE researchers. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | "Improving decision making during antimicrobial management". |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Antimicrobial resistance is a leading patient safety issue. With the increasing uptake of electronic health records, research has started to focus on methods of optimising the use routinely available data to improve decision making surrounding antimicrobial management. Often packaged within clinical decision support systems, these tools tend to have a narrow focus and experience failures in adoption by end users following implementation. Several recommendations have been made to improve the development and reporting of such tools in the literature. Over 40 students attended this seminar, where Dr Tim Rawson spoke about the role of integrated decision support was reviewed including the need for linkage with behaviour change to promote better adoption on implementation by end users. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://www.imperial.ac.uk/arc/embrace/seminar-series/ |
| Description | "Infection Investigator" game to show multidisciplinary approach to AMR - Annual Imperial Festival |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The game was designed to represent how the three Faculties (Medicine, Engineering and Natural Sciences) involved in the EMBRACE program can combine to tackle problems associated with Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR). The game focused on three different pathogens responsible for many common infections (viruses, bacteria and fungi); fun facts and information on the differences between these microorganisms were also provide. It was designed to be played as a team and proved to be extremely popular, especially for families, with around 300 participants over the weekend. Important points of discussion included recognising that flu is caused by a virus and as a result is not susceptible to antibiotic treatment and increasing the awareness on the different types of infection and what treatments are appropriate for each. This event gave our fellows a wider audience outside their discipline/department, it was a unique opportunity to engage students and general public, bringing visibility to the research being done in AMR at the Imperial College. The interactive game provided visual real-time feedback on their decisions, taking participants on a journey from spotting infection symptoms, to where to seek appropriate healthcare, to the name of the disease, the pathogen responsible and finally what the appropriate treatment for that particular infection was. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | "Infection Investigator" game to show multidisciplinary approach to AMR - Annual Imperial Festival |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The interactive game took participants on a journey from spotting infection symptoms, to where to seek appropriate healthcare, to the name of the disease, the pathogen responsible and finally what the appropriate treatment for that particular infection was. Identifying the correct combinations completed electrical circuits to power light bulbs or motors, providing visual real-time feedback on their decisions. The game focused on three different pathogens responsible for many common infections (viruses, bacteria and fungi); fun facts and information on the differences between these microorganisms were also provide. It was designed to be played as a team and proved to be extremely popular, especially for families, with around 200 participants over the weekend. Important points of discussion included recognising that flu is caused by a virus and as a result is not susceptible to antibiotic treatment and increasing the awareness on the different types of infection and what treatments are appropriate for each. The game was designed to represent how the three Faculties (Medicine, Engineering and Natural Sciences) involved in the EMBRACE program can combine to tackle problems associated with Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR). It successfully provided learning experiences for the Bridging The Gap fellows through cross-disciplinary interaction. This event gave our fellows a wider audience outside their discipline/department, it was a unique opportunity to break down barriers and encourage engagement from the students and general public, bringing visibility to the research being done in AMR at the Imperial College. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | 1st EMBRACE Conference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Our first EMBRACE conference took place on 9th March 2016, 9am-5pm, at Imperial College's South Kensington campus. As with all EMBRACE activities, our conference was designed to build multidisciplinary research capacity to tackle antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and to delve into the multi-faceted nature of the antimicrobial resistance problem which requires collaborative innovation on new diagnostics, improved surveillance, effective behaviour change and improved education. Also noted was the importance of translational and interdisciplinary research in this context, and Imperial's tradition of innovative research in this area. The conference included sessions on Data, Diagnostics and the Molecular Perspective, plus a panel discussion and poster competition. Providing a meeting point for engagement with other researchers, breaking down barriers and increasing the profile of AMR research outside the Medicine and Life sciences departments. With this in mind, the winners of the first pump-priming competition where also announced and a presentation of their projects was made. The event was also used to advertise the Bi-monthly seminar series which include speakers from other institutions and researchers from wide range of disciplines. In order to build up momentum and create more opportunities for cross-disciplinary interaction, our sandpit event was also advertised. The aim was to get more participants for the event in July in order to develop a large scale research proposal. The conference gave researchers from Imperial and beyond the opportunity to see some of the innovative AMR research underway, and, just as importantly, enabled investigators and other researchers across the College to embark on new areas of multi-disciplinary work through the contacts that where made but also created opportunities for established groups to work towards developing larger funding proposals. Over 130 delegates speakers from Imperial College, EPSRC, Corporate (DNAe Eletronics, Alere Limited, Shionogi Limited) The Francis Crick Institute, Universitie of Singapore/Southampton/Shionogi/Kings College. Students from Francis Crick Institute, Kings College London, University of Southampton, Sheffield, Warwick, Manchester, Nottingham, Surrey, Public Health England, London School Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and London Metropolitan University. Researchers, consultants, managers and pharmacists from Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and National Physical Laboratory KEYNOTE on Technology for the control of antimicrobial resistance from SE Asia by Professor Paul Ananth Tambyah a Professor of Medicine at the National University of Singapore and Senior Consultant Infectious Diseases Physician at the National University Hospital, Singapore. Imperial presenters included Dr Gerald Larrouy-Maumus, Prof Yi-Ke Guo, Prof Ed Tate and Dr Céire Costelloe. Also presenting where Prof Douglas Young of the Crick Institute and Sam Reed from DNAe Electronics. The EMBRACE PI and CoIs chaired the sessions on Data, Diagnostics and the Molecular Perspective Session 1 on Diagnostics and Session 3 on Molecular Perspective had presentations of the pump-priming award winners. The final session was Chaired by Professor Neil Alford, Vice Dean of Research, Faculty of Engineering, Imperial College and the panellists where Professor Paul Ananth Tambyah, University of Singapore, Professor Tim Leighton, University of Southampton, Dr Kai Stoeber, Shionogi Ltd, Sam Reed, DNAe Electronics, Professor Alison Holmes, Imperial College and Dr Pantelis Georgiou, Imperial College. The event was oversubscribed and gave researchers from Imperial and beyond the opportunity to see some of the innovative AMR research underway and the opportunity to identify potential research collaborators. This conference also enabled investigators and other researchers across the College to embark on new areas of multi-disciplinary work through the contacts that where made but also created opportunities for established groups to work towards developing larger funding proposals. This event was aimed at increasing the profile of AMR research through Imperial College engaging with researchers from other disciplines, but also establishing contacts with institutions across the UK, giving the EMBRACE team a wider audience outside their discipline/department. The activities that run through the day showed the work being done by our Bridging the Gaps fellows in the field of AMR, their cross-disciplinary interaction in the pump priming awards but also the role models and career paths EMBRACE created for junior researchers with an interest in multidisciplinary research. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | http://www.imperial.ac.uk/arc/embrace/conferences/ |
| Description | 9th EPSRC EMBRACE Seminar on Antimicrobial Resistance |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Jackie has made major scientific contributions to neuroscience research and development within the pharmaceutical industry and has had a broader impact across industry and academia. She is also a Professor at St George's Hospital Medical School and was CEO of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council. Dr. Avinash R. Shenoy, Non-Clinical Lecturer in Molecular Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London also gave a presentation on "Caspase targets in host immunity to infection" Lastly, Richard Compton, General Manager at Metrichor, gave a short introduction on "Nanopore Sequencing, with a focus on Infectious Diseases". |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | A talk at The Harrodian School |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Dr Lindsay Evans, one of the Bridging the Gaps Fellows, gave a talk at The Harrodian School to audience of approx. 50 Sixth form and Year 11 students on academic research and AMR. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | AMR Cross Council Initiative phase 2 - A challenge-led approach Working group |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Recognising the challenges of working across 'distant' disciplines (leadership, different languages, methodologies, productivity, publications, follow on funding, recognition etc) this meeting aimed to set a working group that can discuss the interdisciplinary research challenges in ABR and how best to overcome them. This will feed into the ABR call we will be launching in 2017. This group will meet in the future to scope the research questions of the call and the challenges. The group will encompass the AMR cross council initiative Steering Group with additional attendees with previous experience of running interdisciplinary research programmes of global relevance. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | ARC@Imperial 2016 conference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | ARC@Imperial's 2016 conference offered a timely review of its cutting-edge research into AMR. The conference brought together a host of world-leading researchers in the fields of antimicrobial resistance and infectious diseases, as well as representatives from government, industry and funding bodies. The conference attendees were also given the opportunity to visit the Data Science Institute's observatory, where Dr Ceire Costelloe demonstrated visualisations of antibiotic prescriptions and patterns of disease in the UK. The first session of the conference centred on updates from ARC's research fellows and ended with a keynote lecture delivered by Dr Mark Holmes (University of Cambridge Veterinary School), and focused on how the natural history of AMR genes can be examined in the animal host through the use of chromosome conformation metagenomics. The second session looked at data linkage and data visualisation for research and policy follwed by a third session focused on identifying targets in AMR. The fourth session of the day was centred on understanding the emergence of resistance and the fifth and final session included discussions on innovation in technology for diagnosis and dosing. The conference concluded with a topical panel discussion. The panel members included Professor John Watson, Deputy Chief Medical Officer for the Department of Health, keynote speaker Dr Mark Holmes, Ghada Zoubiane of the MRC, and industry representatives Hideki Maki, Shionogi, and Helen Steel, GSK. The panel discussed the impact of Brexit on AMR research, with all agreeing that collaboration would still be essential to future progress in the field. Professor John Watson underlined the necessity of considering how resource-poor countries can be allowed full access to antibiotics, without causing problems of excess. In his closing remarks Professor John Watson stated "one country alone clearly cannot deal with this problem [of AMR]". |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcollege/medicine/departmentofmedicine/newssumm... |
| Description | Addressing infection and multimorbidity across surgical pathways |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Multidisciplinary symposium featuring presentations from pharmacists, healthcare providers, health systems researchers, bioengineering researchers, anaesthetists and surgeons on the importance of addressing infection and multimorbidity across surgical pathways. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| Description | Agrinet 6th symposium November, 6th 2017 (presentation of intact cell lipidomics in Syngenta session) - Presentation from LIPID-MINDS - EMBRACE pump priming award |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The 6th AGRI-net International Plant Chemical Biology conference aimed to stimulate collaborations between the chemical biology and agri-science research communities drawn from academia and industry. This one-day meeting provided a forum for the exchange of ideas and approaches to tackle challenges in sustaining and protecting food and fibre production and covered a wide spectrum of research, with poster contributions from both the chemical biology and agri-sciences communities. Our EMBRACE pump priming project made a presentation of intact cell lipidomics. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://www.agri-net.net/events/6th-international-plant-chemical-biology-conference |
| Description | BristolBridge Inaugural Conference - held on 8 April 2016, Engineers' House, Clifton Down, Bristol |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | One day conference on 'Meeting the Challenge of Antimicrobial Resistance through the Application of Advances in the Engineering and Physical Sciences'. This event successfully provided exciting experience for the Bridging The Gap fellows through cross-disciplinary interaction with researchers outside Imperial College. It also helped to disseminate the outcomes of the programme and the research of our fellows. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | Contribution to BBC program on AMR |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Dr Lindsay Evans, Bridging the Gaps Fellow contributed to a BBC program on AMR |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Double Seminar on "Using whole genome sequencing to investigate the national and international spread of multidrug-resistant S. pneumoniae lineages" and "Using whole genome sequencing to investigate healthcare associated infections and antimicrobial resistance". |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | The first EMBRACE double seminar brought together Dr Nickolas Croucher, Faculty of Medicine, School of Public Health and Dr Elita Jauneikaite, Elita Jauneikaite, Research Associate at the NIHR. With both presentations centered around the genome sequencing and AMR, this was a great way to showcase the research being done at different levels and across the College. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | Dundee Drug Discovery unit visits Imperial CMBI, EMBRACE to talk about AMR research at Imperial college |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Researchers from Dundee Drug Discovery unit visited Imperial College for a full day meeting with EMBRACE and CMBI to talk about AMR research. This event provided cross-disciplinary interaction with an outside institution and brought visibility to the research being done on AMR at Imperial. This meeting also showed the role models and career paths created by EMBRACE for researchers with an interest in multidisciplinary research and AMR. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | ECCMID 2018, Madrid seminar "Real-time antimicrobial sensing - closing the loop on precision antimicrobial therapy" |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The world's leading experts joined the most important congress in infectious diseases, infection control and clinical microbiology to present and discuss the latest results. The Programme Committee prepared a comprehensive scientific programme with keynote lectures, symposia, oral and poster sessions as well as educational formats on parallel tracks. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://www.eccmid.org/ |
| Description | EMBRACE Posters |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Our first EMBRACE poster show was designed to delve into the multi-faceted nature of the antimicrobial resistance problem which requires collaborative innovation on new diagnostics, improved surveillance, effective behaviour change and improved education. With this in mind, a poster competition was launched at our first EMBRACE conference, showing the work being done in the field of AMR by EMBRACE researchers. The event provided a meeting point for engagement with researchers from different fields and even beyond Imperial, in particular, it allowed to see some of the innovative AMR research underway, and, just as importantly, the opportunity to identify potential research collaborators. The posters displayed through the day showed the work being done by our Bridging the Gaps fellows in the field of AMR, their cross-disciplinary interaction in the pump priming awards but also the role models and career paths EMBRACE created for junior researchers with an interest in multidisciplinary research. This also enabled investigators and other researchers across the College to embark on new areas of multi-disciplinary work through the contacts that where made but also created opportunities for established groups to work towards developing larger funding proposals. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | EMBRACE special double seminar |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | We teamed up with the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine to organise a special double-seminar on 15 November. The first presenter of the afternoon was from Dr Tim Rawson on "Improving decision making during antimicrobial management". Antimicrobial resistance is a leading patient safety issue. With the increasing uptake of electronic health records, research has started to focus on methods of optimising the use routinely available data to improve decision making surrounding antimicrobial management. In this seminar, the role of integrated decision support will be reviewed including the need for linkage with behaviour change to promote better adoption on implementation by end users. Timothy Miles Rawson a Clinical Research Fellow at the NIHR Health Protection Research is currently leading EPIC IMPOC, a project aiming at exploring the utility of integrating machine learning techniques, rapid diagnostics, and mechanisms for drug dose optimisation into clinical decision support systems to improve infection management in the hospital setting. Our guest speaker from LSHTM, Dr Gwen Knight, will be presenting on "Tackling transmission of antimicrobial resistance using mathematical models". Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is one of the world's biggest public health concerns. Although many interventions have been suggested, determining which will have the biggest impact is of great importance. In this talk Prof Gwen Knight will discuss how we can use colonisation pressure as a proxy for transmission, estimate this parameter from clinical data and describe how the complicated natural history of transmission (or fitness) can be teased apart using mathematical models. Gwen Knight is an Assistant Professor at LSHTM. She currently holds an MRC Skills Development Fellowship. Her research focuses on using mathematical modelling to target infectious disease spread, in particular the spread of antimicrobial resistance. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://www.imperial.ac.uk/arc/embrace/seminar-series/ |
| Description | EMBRACE workshop and Dragons Den Competition |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | This educational workshop introduced the challenges we are facing in AMR and how multidisciplinary research spanning Engineering, Medicine, Physical and Natural Sciences can help solve this problem. Attendees had the opportunity to become familiarised with the challenges in AMR through a series of presentations by the EMBRACE pump priming and sandpit awardees. Following the afternoon's presentations, we hosted a Dragons Den Competition followed by a networking event and BBQ where attendees had the opportunity to interact with our cohort of experienced multidisciplinary researchers working in the field of AMR. The first session of the afternoon was focused on the EMBRACE Pump Priming & Sandpit awards, and their progress to date, focusing on the how this multidisciplinary groups are working together and fostering their mid to long-term collaboration and how the data being generated can successfully be used to support applications for larger grants. The following Sandpit and Pump priming awards were present: Promoting Immune Clearance of Bacterial Pathogens, Dr Andrew Edwards; Rapid Evaporative Ionisation Mass Spectrometry for Early detection of Antimicrobial Resistance, Dr Simon Cameron; Antimicrobial resistance in gut communities, Dr Lesley Hoyles; LIPID-MINDS: Lipid Mapping to Identify Novel Drug Solutions, Dr Gerald Larrouy-Maumus; Real-time Enhanced Antimicrobial ConTroller (REACT), Dr Pau Herrero-Viñas Our Dragons Den competition closed the afternoon. We invited PhD students and early career post-doctoral researchers, either as individuals or groups, to give a 5 minute "Dragons Den" style pitch to a panel of experts as to how their research can contribute to addressing the challenge of AMR. Interested participants submitted an abstract (200 words max, PDF format) on how their approach could achieve this. The presentations were solo or in a group and both winners received £1000 funding from EMBRACE and will be given mentorship from world experts in the field towards implementing their idea and furthering their career through potential applications for funding. Seven groups faced our four dragons and an audience of more than 60 researchers and students. The winners were Jon Otter with "Developing "smart" antimicrobial surfaces to reduce the transmission of antibiotic-resistant hospital pathogens" and FeedBac, a colour changing test for specific pathogenic bacteria that is fast, affordable and simple to use. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://www.imperial.ac.uk/arc/embrace/embrace-workshop/ |
| Description | EPSRC Healthcare Technology Programme |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | EMBRACE was featured in a presentation given by Dr Annette Bramley to the Imperial College London community as an example of multidisciplinary research |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Genome-wide Dengue conservation profile |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Dr Daniel Mansur is a Principal Investigator at the Federal University of Santa Catarina, Brazil and former PHD at Imperial College. Dr. Mansur stimulated the audience with is findings, explaining that he and his team as successfully identified a highly conserved, critical peptide in DV that is a target of antibodies in infected humans that could be used for vaccine design. The EMBRACE seminar series once more provided opportunities for cross-disciplinary interaction, this time, with researchers from abroad, breaking down barriers and encouraging engagement. Dr Mansur research is specially relevant due to Dengue currently affecting nearly 390 million people every year worldwide with symptoms ranging from mild fever to severe shock syndrome. After this seminar plans where made for future collaboration between EMBRACE researchers and Dr. Mansur's team from the Federal University of Santa Catarina, Brazil. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | ICID 2018 - "Precision antimicrobial management using biosensor technology" |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The 18th ICID encompassed all of the fields of infectious diseases with particular attention being paid to the major challenges of the region including, of course, Zika, dengue and other related viral infections, AIDS, tuberculosis, pneumonia, and enteric and parasitic infections. ISID has been at the forefront of the One Health movement and this is reflected in their meetings, which also have a major focus on disease prevention and vaccine implementation. ISID meetings are distinguished by their unique blend of basic science and clinical practice. ISID meetings are notable for the extraordinarily wide range of countries represented and the opportunity they afford for close exchange and communication between senior and junior colleagues. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://www.isid.org/icid/ |
| Description | IMSE - Development of "smart surfaces" to tackle antimicrobial resistance via a multi-disciplinary approach |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | This was a one day workshop to explore and establish opportunities in this field. EMBRACE researchers from pump priming awards were present and helped to generate ideas for future proposals which will complement the broader AMR work which is already taking place across Imperial. Professor Alison Holmes (Medicine; EMBRACE) set the scene, followed by talks from a wide variety of Imperial colleagues including Professor Oscar Ces (Chemistry) and Dr Jon Otter (Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust). The afternoon was comprised of breakout groups and discussions. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcollege/engineering/imse/eventssummary/event_2... |
| Description | Imperial's ARC & EMBRACE collaborations joined forces with the School of Public Health to deliver a day with a focus on AMR in the context of global health |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Undergraduate students |
| Results and Impact | The 2016 Faculty of Medicine Summer School, Revolutions in Biomedicine, brought together bioscience and medical students from all over the world. Through lectures, interactive group work and laboratory research projects they covered topics as diverse and wide-ranging as stress to big data. On the penultimate day of the school, the EMBRACE team joined forces with Dr Mariam Sbaiti from the School of Public Health to deliver a day on Antimicrobial Resistance & Global Health. The day commenced with an introduction to antimicrobial resistance (AMR) from Dr Maryam Modarai (EMBRACE fellow, department of Medicine). This charted the discovery and widespread implementation of antibiotics to treat bacterial infections (a true revolution in biomedicine!), the emergence of resistance infection and the mechanisms by which they arise, and the potential post-antibiotic era that we face today. This was followed by two research talks from Imperial's Antimicrobial Resistance Collaborative (ARC) fellows, Dr Martina Valentini and Dr Myrsini Kaforou. Both talks focused on specific areas of research within the field of AMR that are currently being undertaken at Imperial College, introducing the students to current research topics and giving insight into the world of biomedical research. The students had opportunity to ask questions about AMR in the broader context and promoted discussions between the panel and students. Important topics such as the economic reasons behind the lack of new antibiotics coming to market in the last 30 years, the effects of unregulated antibiotic use, and why bacteriophages, which are a popular alternative to antibiotics in countries such as Russia, are not used worldwide were discussed. The day was highly successful in fulfilling its aims of engaging the next generation of scientists and medics on the threat of AMR and the complex problems that feed into global health issues. The students particularly enjoyed hearing about the cutting-edge research at Imperial College and the opportunity for discussion with people working in these important research areas. This event was also a fantastic opportunity for those involved in the day, giving experience of collaborating with multiple departments to deliver a focused day of interdisciplinary teaching. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | http://www.imperial.ac.uk/arc/embrace/news-and-articles/ |
| Description | Metting with Shionogi (Japanese pharma company) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Dr Andrew Edwards is currently in discussion with Shionogi (Japanese pharma company), who are keen to become involved in his work on "Promoting Immune Clearance of Bacterial Pathogens" a Sandpit award from EMBRACE. Dr Andrew and his team have hosted a delegation from Shionogi at Imperial College and he as traveled to Japan to discuss this further. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Pathways to Medicine |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Undergraduate students |
| Results and Impact | The microbiology work of the group has been covered in a Pathways to Medicine event for students in post-16 education interested in pursuing science and medicine careers, and in discussions with the group's newly formed patient representatives panel. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | Presentation from Professor Alasdair "Alex" Cook, Head of the Department of Veterinary Epidemiology and Public Health from School of Veterinary Medicine, University of Surrey |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Professor Alasdair "Alex" Cook is a veterinary epidemiologist with more than 25 years national and international experience in livestock animal health in Government, academic and development environments. With a professional life engaged in leading multi-disciplinary teams Alex was a natural choice to speak in our seminar series. His engaging approach to promoting digital innovation in research, education and business led to an interesting interaction with the students. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | Promoting Immune Clearance of Bacterial Pathogens - EMBRACE Sandpit award @ Imperial Festival 2017 Superbug Zone |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Kam Pou Ha (PhD student) highlighted this project at the Imperial Festival 2017, as part of the Superbugs zone. This included a hands-on activity to explain the project, which generated significant interest. A similar exhibit is planned for 2018, and this work has also been highlighted at other engagement events such as a talk given by Edwards at the Wellcome Collection, a BBC documentary (Michael Mosely versus the Superbugs) and media interviews (BBC World News, ITV News). |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Royal Society of Chemistry early career workshop on diagnostics for antimicrobial resistance |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | This workshop aimed at supporting recent appointees and early career researchers (e.g. PhD or postdoctoral) or equivalent, working in academia, industry or a clinical setting. Applications were submitted from all fields of research, including those outside of the life sciences (e.g. social sciences, engineering, physics). The day included a keynote presentation, invited talks and two panel discussions. There was also be an interactive session led by invited experts and a poster session to facilitate interdisciplinary networking between delegates. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://www.rsc.org/events/detail/27822/early-career-researcher-workshop-on-diagnostics-for-antimicro... |
| Description | Sandpit Event |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | This event aimed at proposing innovative solutions to address the antimicrobial resistance (AMR) challenge. It was conducted by Knowinnovation, a company with more than 10 years of experience of running sandpit events. Over 30 investigators from Imperial College and Universities of Newcastle, Surrey and Warwick gathered at South Kensington. The four EMBRACE co-PI's, Professors Chris Toumazou (Engineering), Alison Holmes (Medicine), Alan Armstrong (Natural Science) and Pantelis Georgiou (Engineering) were responsible for stimulating and provoking the participants with short talks and sharp questions. The three EMBRACE fellows, Doctors Lindsay Evans (Natural Science), Maryam Modarai (Medicine) and Pau Herrero (Engineering), were among the participants. During the first day, several activities involving a lot of creative methods and soapbox talks were conducted in order to get to know each other and get a better picture of the expertise in the room. Lewis Preece from EPSRC gave a talk on the longer term funding opportunities that are on offer, and which could be used to obtain follow-up funding after the sandpit. The day ended with a dinner at 58 Prince's Gate. The second day of the sandpit was focused on creating multidisciplinary teams of 4-8 participants and writing short, innovative proposals tackling the problem of AMR. At the end of the day, 5 proposals were presented which were evaluated by a panel of experts formed by Professors Alison Holmes, Alan Armstrong, Pantelis Georgiou and Ramesh Wigneshweraraj. The requirement for projects to be interdisciplinary and with new collaborations has led to people working together that would not have otherwise. Expectations are that through this pump-priming project the development of collaborations and outcomes will provide track record/pilot data for larger applications. Already some ideas are being translated in potential calls together with HPRU for funding from EPSRC/NIHR. Creation of a cohort of experienced multidisciplinary researchers to work in the field of AMR and successfully provided learning experiences for the Bridging The Gap fellows through cross-disciplinary interaction. The requirement for the applications to be interdisciplinary and with new collaborations has led to people working together that would not have otherwise. Expectations are that the development of collaborations and outcomes will provide track record/pilot data for larger applications. Already some ideas are being translated in potential calls together with HPRU for funding from EPSRC/NIHR. Dr Andrew Edwards/Dr John Tregoning/Dr Ali Saleh-Reyhani/Dr Avinash Shenoy/Dr Mike Cox/Dr Myrsini Kaforou (Medicine); Dr Lindsay Evans/Dr Thomas Lanyon-Hogg (Chemistry) - "Promoting Immune Clearance of Bacterial Pathogens". The aim of this project is to develop small molecule inhibitors of a specific DNA-repair complex that can be used prophylactically or therapeutically to promote immune clearance of bacterial pathogens and reduce the emergence of drug-resistant pathogens. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | http://www.imperial.ac.uk/arc/embrace/news-and-articles/ |
| Description | Second 'All-Networks' AMR meeting hosted by SHAMROK at Sheffield |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The second meeting of the consortium was hosted by the SHAMROK network at Sheffield University in the Council Room, Firth Court. Principal Investigators from each of the eleven Universities in the group gave presentions on their progress to date. Christina Turner and Stephanie Newland from EPSRC gave a presentation that explained the funding environment for networks and science. The group then divided, with principal investigators meeting in one room and grant programme managers in another. The discussions centred on holding a possible joint final conference and on the options open for securing follow-on funding to ensure that the networks do not dry up. The Programme Managers group discussed best practice generally, particularly in the area of sharing network achievements. This event successfully provided another engaging experience for the Bridging The Gap fellows through cross-disciplinary interaction with the other groups from the program. It also helped to disseminate the outcomes of the programme and the research of our fellows. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | Seminar on "Antibiotics in the environment, implications for Antibiotic-Resistance" |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | A great presentation by Dr Nick Voulvoulis, an expert in Environmental Technology allowed our audience to see a different approach to the AMR problematic and also engage with experts from another discipline. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | Seminar on "Bacterial Olympics: Competition and resistance" |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | The 7th EMBRACE seminar first speaker was Dr Caroline Colijn, who engaged the audience with her approach to develop mathematical tools to connect sequence data for pathogens to pathogen ecology. The students also showed interest in the work developed by Caroline and her group regarding the building of new approaches to analysing phylogenetic trees derived from pathogen sequence data. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | Seminar on "Do Android (phones) dream of health games and apps? Exploring e/g-health interventions in patient safety" |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | EMBRACE started 2016 with a seminar from Dr. Enrique Castro, Lead Research Nurse (CIPM), Dept. of Medicine with a practical and engaging talk about Android phones and health interventions. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | Seminar on "Enhanced, Personalised, and Integrated Care for Infection Management at the Point-of-Care" presented by Dr Tim Rawson. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Timothy Miles Rawson a Clinical Research Fellow at the NIHR Health Protection Research is currently leading a project exploring the utility of Enhanced, Personalised, and Integrated Care for Infection Management at the Point-of-Care (EPIC IMPOC). This aims to explore the utility of integrating machine learning techniques, rapid diagnostics, and mechanisms for drug dose optimisation into clinical decision support systems to improve infection management in the hospital setting. This has been supported by an EPSRC pump priming award, as part of Imperial Antimicrobial Resistance Collaborative (ARC) EMBRACE project, which aims to promote closer collaboration between engineering, physics, natural sciences, and medicine to develop novel solutions to tackle antimicrobial resistance. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | Seminar on "Measures to control the spread of Multi-drug resistant organisms in hospitals: what are the current problematics" |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | The EMBRACE seminar series started with Dr. Gabriel Birgand, Research Associate and ARC Fellow, Dep Medicine. The first event brought together researchers from different disciplines and departments leading to networking and knowledge transfer that would otherwise not have occurred. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
| Description | Seminar on "Phage-inspired solutions to combat antibacterial resistance?" |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Prof Ramesh Wigneshweraraj, Professor of Molecular Microbiology presentation had lots of interaction with the audience, showing new antibacterial mechanisms in the search for new antibiotics. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | Seminar on "Towards rapid point-of-care diagnostics for infectious diseases and antimicrobial resistance". |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Having his core expertise is situated within the interface of biology and engineering, Dr Jesus Rodriguez Manzano managed to captivate the audience with a talk about the development of point-of-care diagnostic technologies for infectious diseases. This seminar was highly attended, in particular, by Ms students. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | Seminar with Professor Ramon Vilar, "Targeting quadruplex-DNA in promoters of genes associated to antibacterial resistance" |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is increasingly being recognised as one of the biggest global health concerns. The inability to treat bacterial infections could lead to an annual death toll of 10 million worldwide by 2050 and make many of the medical advances of the 20th century obsolete. The 3-decade void in antibiotic drug discovery means that recently discovered therapeutic targets have not been fully exploited in this field. An example of a therapeutic target that has so far been under exploited in AMR are the G-quadruplexes, which have been extensively studied in cancer. G-quadruplexes are quadruply-stranded helical structures found in guanine-rich oligonucleotides and are thought to play essential biological roles including regulation of gene expression. In this seminar Prof Vilar described preliminary investigations aimed at exploring the role that G-quadruplexes may play in regulating the expression of genes responsible for antibiotic resistance in Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The latter is responsible for many life-threatening infections and has been identified as one of three highest priority pathogens in a recent World Health Organisation report. The talk focused on the biophysical characterisation of a series of quadruplex-forming sequences. Prof Vilar showed that some of them form robust G-qudruplexes and they may be potential targets for the development of new small-molecule drugs. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://www.imperial.ac.uk/arc/embrace/seminar-series/ |
| Description | Sensors in Medicine - National conference, London (Tim Rawson) "Antibiotic dose optimisation, a role for biosensor technology" |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The conference explored new developments in sensor technology and advances in their application in medicine and healthcare. Sensors in Medicine 2017 highlighted those sensor developments which can improve patient outcomes. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://www.sensor100.com/SensMed2017/Conference.html |
| Description | Tackling transmission of antimicrobial resistance using mathematical models |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Over 40 students attended a talk from our guest speaker from LSHTM, Dr Gwen Knight, presenting on "Tackling transmission of antimicrobial resistance using mathematical models". Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is one of the world's biggest public health concerns. Although many interventions have been suggested, determining which will have the biggest impact is of great importance. One way to compare interventions and hence optimise resource allocation is to predict future AMR burden under different control measures using mathematical modelling. However, these predictions rely on a complex and often hidden parameter: the rate of transmission. In this talk Dr Knight discussed how we can use colonisation pressure as a proxy for transmission, estimate this parameter from clinical data and describe how the complicated natural history of transmission (or fitness) can be teased apart using mathematical models. This will use data on carbapenem resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) from Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, as well as data from Peru on multi-drug resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis transmission. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://www.imperial.ac.uk/arc/embrace/seminar-series/ |
| Description | The 9th Annual North American Congress of The Association for Mass Spectrometry: Applications to the Clinical Lab |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The MSACL Conference provides a forum for discussion of developments in the clinical application of mass spectrometry. While immunoassay methods have dominated clinical analyses, mass spectrometric methods are now providing analytical results more rapidly and with less-expense. MSACL brings together experts in the field with those driven to explore and understand clinical mass spectrometry, with the goal of facilitating mass spectrometry's adoption as a health care tool and accelerating the realization of improved patient care and reduced health care costs. This event allowed our researchers to engage with international experts and promote the research being done at the Imperial College. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | The Imperial / Ri Summit, 'Technology vs Infectious Diseases' |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | In today's globalised world, increased movement of people, the expansion of international trade in foodstuffs, not to mention growing antibiotic resistance, mean that the dangers posed by infectious diseases have never been greater. Infectious diseases are now spreading geographically much faster than at any time in history and there are now nearly 40 diseases that were unknown a generation ago. In addition, during the last five years, the World Health Organisation has verified more than 1,100 epidemic events worldwide. However, some of the smartest minds in industry, academia and charities are now pouring their efforts into tackling this key global challenge. The Technology vs Infectious Diseases Summit revealed how the best, in UK technology is helping to combat bacterial, viral and fungal diseases. It featured some of the foremost thinkers who are tackling the global challenge of infectious diseases and Anti-Microbial Resistance. The Summit included British industry, academia, NGOs and young entrepreneurs, showcasing the worldwide contribution of UK research in this area and its collaborations with developing countries. The afternoon started with a welcome from Professor Gail Cardew, Director of Science and Education at the Royal Institution and an introduction by Professor James Stirling, Imperial College Provost. The first session chaired by Professor Alison Holmes started with a focus on Global Infection threats, with presentations covering innovative technology for the management and control of dengue by Dr Jesus Rodrigues Manzano and Dr Sophie Yacoub, followed by an inter-disciplinary approach for malaria eradication by Dr Jake Baum and how the global emergence of antimicrobial resistance in pathogenic fungi is being recognised as a major driver for infectious diseases mortality by Dr Darius Armstrong-James. The first session ended with an overview by Professor Robin Shattock on "'Vaccines vs infection': old foes, emerging threats and changing populations" and a presentation by Dr Emmanuel Hanon, Global Head of GSK Vaccine Research and Development on the most recent advances in vaccine technology platforms. The second session chaired by Dr Pantelis Georgiou focused on the challenges of bacterial infections and what technology can do to tackle this issue. To kick-start this session we were introduced to DNA sequencing-based tests that can rapidly provide accurate diagnostic information on infectious diseases by Mr David Davidson, Chief Scientific Officer from DNA Electronics ltd, followed by a presentation on machine learning and biosensor technology to improve the precision of antibiotic management by Dr Danny O'Hare and Dr Tim Rawson. This session then moved on to a talk about "Serious games: a new 'tablet' against drug-resistant infections" a new software that uses psychological techniques in place in games to optimise prescriber behaviours in hospitals, developed by Dr Enrique Castro Sanchez and Mr Jamie Firth and it finished with an approach to early detection of antimicrobrial resistance using rapid evaporative ionisation MS (REIMS) in the diagnostic laboratory and livestock infection, by Dr Fankie Bolt and Dr Simon Cameron. Following the afternoon presentations, the attentions shifted to the showcase of technologies that included ProMED, an Internet-based reporting system dedicated to rapid global dissemination of information on outbreaks of infectious diseases; POCAST and Target, facilitating navigation, access and use of national antimicrobial guidelines to support clinical prescribing decisions; and Microreact, open data visualization and sharing for genomic epidemiology. Also among the technology on display at the Ri was DNAe LiDia BSI Test for diagnosis of bloodstream infections that lead to sepsis, which was unveiled for the first time. The evening was hosted by Sir Richard Sykes, Chair of the Royal Institution and former Rector of Imperial College and featured a keynote address by Prof David Heymann Head of the Centre on Global Health Security at Chatham House, on "Global Infectious Diseases: Priorities for action". With the unprecedent growth of newly emerging diseases and the live threat of infectious diseases spreading rapidly at a global level, the critical debate through the public communication of science is even more paramount. This summit at the Ri, a place where cutting-edge science has been announced, debated and showcased to the world for over 200 years, is a reminder that the research in science and technology carried out in this country has a major role in the fight against global infectious diseases and drug resistant infections. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcollege/newssummary/news_27-9-2017-10-12-44 |
| Description | Visit to Southampton for the first meeting of UK AMR 'Bridging the Gap' Networks |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The University held a mini-symposium with representatives from the UK Networks that EPSRC funded on its 'Bridging the Gaps between the Engineering and Physical Sciences (EPS) and Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR)' call. This event successfully provided learning experiences for the Bridging The Gap fellows through cross-disciplinary interaction with the other Bridging The Gap groups and also to disseminate the outcomes of the programme and the finding of our fellows |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | World Antibiotic Awareness Week and EMBRACE |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | On 18th November 2016, EMBRACE organised its first joint seminar with SurreyCHAIR, associating the event with the World Antibiotic Awareness Week, raising awareness as well as funds with the Great British Tea Party. The guest reader was Professor Alasdair "Alex" Cook who is a veterinary epidemiologist with more than 25 years national and international experience in livestock animal health in Government, academic and development environments. Alex is a firm believer in a multi-disciplinary team approach to research, engaging with molecular biologists, microbiologists and socio-economists to name but a few. This idea brought both groups together and further collaboration is planned with a joint data visualisation workshop as well as a series of seminars/workshops on drug detection technology and devices; longitudinal study on education and AMR stewardship and economics and prescribing. Our second reader of the day was Dr Caroline Colijn on "Bacterial Olympics: Competition and resistance". She works with a broad aim to develop the mathematical tools to connect sequence data for pathogens to pathogen ecology. Caroline also has a long-standing interest on the dynamics of diverse interacting pathogens. Her group is building new approaches to analysing phylogenetic trees derived from pathogen sequence data, studying tree space and branching processes, and doing ecological and epidemiological modelling. After the presentations the attendees stayed for our charity bake sale and coffee morning, part of the Great British Tea Partyorganised to help Antibiotic Research UK to raise valuable funds for research, education and patient support. We raised over £120 and sold delicious cakes made for the event by members of our team. The morning was highly successful in fulfilling our aims of raising awareness and funds to the World Antibiotic Awareness Week and also engaging with researchers from Surrey School of Veterinary Medicine, following an earlier meeting in July. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcollege/medicine/arc/newssummary/news_30-11-20... |