New investment strengthens infection research in the UK
16 July 2008
The Wellcome Trust and three other partners - the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, Medical Research Council and National Institute for Health Research - have awarded a total of £9 million to establish the two consortia. The first comprises Imperial College London, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and the Health Protection Agency; the second the Oxford Biomedical Research Centre (a partnership between the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals and the University of Oxford), the Health Protection Agency Regional Microbiology Network, and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute.
This is the first round of funding awarded under a UK Clinical Research Collaboration (UKCRC) joint initiative. The initiative was set up to bring together new multidisciplinary research groups focused on high quality collaborative research addressing national research priorities in the field of microbiology and infection.
The Oxford consortium, led by Dr Derrick Crook from the University of Oxford, will focus on research into how infectious diseases are transmitted, with the aim of improving control of their spread. It will exploit recent advances made in sequencing the genomes of bacterial and viral pathogens of public health concern. 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 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. Led by Professor Jonathan Friedland and Dr Alison Holmes from Imperial College, it will bring together clinical, laboratory, public health, academic and managerial research expertise to drive forward translational and applied research on infection. 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. 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.
Image: Clusters of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteria; Annie Cavanagh, Wellcome Images