GW4 AMR Alliance

A One Health AMR (antimicrobial resistance) research consortium at the universities of Bath, Bristol, Cardiff and Exeter to tackle the global threat of antimicrobial resistance, which aims to become the UK’s leading ‘One Health’ AMR research consortium, recognised globally. We will increase understanding of, and develop and implement effective interventions for, containing and controlling AMR.

Our One Health Approach

Society is facing a rise in the number of bacteria and fungi becoming resistant to existing antimicrobials (e.g. antibiotics and antifungals) without a matching increase in new antimicrobials or new treatments. As such, antimicrobial resistance (AMR) one of the greatest emerging threats to human health. The GW4 AMR Alliance aims to tackle this global challenge with an interdisciplinary ‘One Health’ approach and unparalleled expertise.

AMR is a complex problem that affects all of society and is driven by many interconnected factors. Antimicrobial-resistant-microbes are found in people, animals, food, and the environment (in water, soil and air). They can spread between people and animals, including from food of animal origin, and from person to person.

‘One Health’ is a framework to design and implement programmes, policies, legislation and research in which multiple sectors communicate and work together in an interdisciplinary way to achieve better public health outcomes for humans and animals, particularly by considering the impact of the environment. The approach is widely recognised by national and international agencies, such as the WHO, as the essential approach to address the global challenge of AMR. Therefore, a collaborative, long-term, interdisciplinary, and sustainable research effort taking a global One Health approach is needed to lead the drive to combat AMR at national and global levels.

The mission of the GW4 AMR Alliance is:

To deliver world-leading research addressing key knowledge gaps within specific as well as global settings.
To transform strategies to tackle AMR using cross-institutional, synergistic, interdisciplinary research that maximises engagement, translation and impact.
To cultivate a collaborative, interdisciplinary research and training environment in which the next generation of AMR researchers will flourish.

Our four research areas take a holistic approach to tackling AMR under the headings below:

MITIGATING AND MANAGING INFECTIONS IN HUMANS AND ANIMALS

The AMR Alliance focuses on all types of infections to catalyse engagement and maximise the opportunity to coalesce expertise, for example, across genomics, experimental science, drug discovery, diagnostics and clinical, public health and environmental science as well as engage with national and international agencies. This is timely due to the clear links to COVID-19 and patient susceptibility to contracting secondary bacterial and fungal infections. We anticipate that this may lead to further targeted research areas, for example, secondary infections, hospital-acquired infections and community infections.

TOWARDS UNDERSTANDING SELECTION AND TRANSMISSION (DRIVERS OF AMR)

Through this complex programme, the AMR Alliance is drawing on novel approaches to problems which are usually disaggregated, and which drive selection, including social practices (e.g. antimicrobial stewardship, regulation and policies, infection prevention control), evolutionary and ecological processes, and their impact on selection (i.e. amplification) and transmission.

TACKLING AMR WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

The AMR Alliance is using a One Health approach to help tackle AMR within the framework of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). AMR is relevant to six SDGs: SDG 2: Zero Hunger SDG 3: Good Health and Wellbeing SDG 6: Clean Water and Sanitation SDG 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure SDG12: Responsible Consumption and Production SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals This topic is inherently interdisciplinary, and we have chosen it to encourage further international engagement with low-and-middle-income countries (LMICs) and enable us to draw on our aligned strengths.

REDUCING AMR, OPTIMISING TREATMENT AND DISCOVERY SCIENCE

The UK Five Year National Action Plan details a strategy to tackle AMR within and beyond the UK. It focuses on the One Health approach across three interrelated keys areas: Reducing the need for, and unintentional exposure to, antimicrobials by lowering the burden of human and animal infection, minimising the spread of AMR through the environment, better food safety and greater global access to clean water and sanitation; Optimising the use of antimicrobials in humans and animals and agriculture along with stronger laboratory capacity and surveillance of AMR in both humans and animals; Investing in innovation, supply, and access, through the development of new therapeutics, rapid diagnostics and vaccines, with wider access to those that need them.