Infection research consortia created with £9m joint funding

16 July 2008

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.

The consortia were established with £9m funding, 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.

This is the first round of funding awarded under the UKCRC Translational Infection Research Initiative, which aims to bring together new multi-disciplinary research groups focused on high quality collaborative research addressing national research priorities in the microbiology and infection field. A second round of funding under the initiative is scheduled for award in late 2009.

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. It 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.

The London consortium, based at Imperial College, will address the challenge of healthcare-associated infection by conducting research into individual and organisational behavioural change, modelling, epidemiology, rapid diagnosis and surveillance of selected infectious diseases.

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.

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