£9m new investment to strengthen infection research in the UK

Two major infection research consortia have been established today in London and Oxford to conduct collaborative research into nationally important areas including healthcare-associated infections and antibiotic resistance.

A total of £9m has been jointly awarded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, Medical Research Council, National Institute for Health Research and Wellcome Trust through a competitive process to establish the two consortia.

This is the first round of funding awarded under a UK Clinical Research Collaboration (UKCRC) joint initiative, potentially involving seven funding organisations. The initiative was set up to bring together new multi-disciplinary research groups focused on high quality collaborative research addressing national research priorities in the field of microbiology and infection.

The Oxford consortium will focus on research to increase understanding of how infectious diseases are transmitted with the aim of improving control of their spread. The consortium will exploit recent advances made in sequencing the genomes of bacterial and viral pathogens of public health concern, to improve and speed up their classification and identification. This should make it easier to track and deal with local outbreaks of infection, identify particularly virulent strains, and help to spot where infection control guidelines can be improved.

The London consortium is based at Imperial College London. It will focus on research into individual and organisational behavioural change, modelling, epidemiology, rapid diagnosis and surveillance of selected infectious diseases, to address the challenge of healthcare-associated infection. It will bring together clinical, laboratory, public health, academic and managerial research expertise to drive forward translational and applied research oninfection. The overall aim is to embed infection control into healthcare delivery.

The UKCRC Translational Infection Research Initiative is a partnership of seven funders who have committed up to £16.5m investment to strengthen infection research in the UK. The Partners are: the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council; the Medical Research Council; the National Institute for Health Research; the Northern Ireland Health and Social Care Research and Development Office; the Chief Scientist Office of the Scottish Government Health Directorates; the Wales Office of Research and Development for Health and Social Care, Welsh Assembly Government; and the Wellcome Trust.

A second round of funding under the initiative is scheduled for award in late 2009. Both successful consortia are working closely with the Health Protection Agency, which is an independent organisation dedicated to protecting people’s health in the UK.