£5.7m awarded to tackle antimicrobial resistance

A team of scientists at the University of Sheffield has received a £5.7m Wellcome Trust Discovery Award to help tackle the crucial threat of antimicrobial resistance.

Led by Professor Simon Foster, from the University of Sheffield’s School of Biosciences, the six year funding programme will bring together a team of international researchers to shed light on the basic principles that underpin bacterial life and provide new avenues for novel therapeutic approaches.

The award builds on the University of Sheffield’s strong reputation for research into understanding and tackling the increasingly important global challenge of antimicrobial and antibiotic resistance. This has included research into a quicker way of detecting antibiotic resistance in bacteria; work to foster the next generation of talent in the field, the discovery of a new drug combination to tackle antimicrobial resistance and a breakthrough in understanding how penicillin works.

The new project will see interdisciplinary and international investigators including Professor Ethan Garner from Harvard University, and Professor Ros Allen from the University of Jena in Germany, join Dr Rebecca Corrigan, Professor Jamie Hobbs and Professor Jeff Green from the University of Sheffield’s Faculty of Science, to focus on the mechanisms underpinning high level antibiotic resistance in MRSA (Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus aureus) and how these are integrated with growth and division.

Professor Foster said: “Every year MRSA is responsible for 100,000 deaths and so we are delighted to receive this Wellcome Trust grant which will enable our team of international scientists to carry out vital research into the high-level antibiotic resistance in MRSA. The work will build on our foundation of recent discoveries.”