Pump Priming Projects
INTEGRATE funding has been allocated to pump prime promising ideas to tackle Antimicrobial Resistance and to foster interdisciplinary collaborations across campus.
- Infection in a microfluidic channel
(Physics/Medicine)
Investigators: Dr Marco Polin, Dr Meera Unnikrishnan
Aims: Establish an infection-on-chip system to probe S. aureus interactions with host cells. - Development of micro- to macroscopic time-lapse imaging platform for bacterial collective dynamics
(Physics/ Life Sciences)
Investigators: Dr Marco Polin, Dr Vasily Kantsler, Dr Munehiro Asally, Dr Yin Chen
Aims: Establishment of a new integrated imaging device for simultaneous measurements of single cell dynamics and population dynamics.
- Identifying the signature of bacterial respiratory tract infection by the detection of volatile biomarker metabolites (Engineering/Physics/Systems Biology
Investigators: Dr James Covington, Prof. Matt Turner, Dr Richard Savage
Aims: Evaluate if it is possible to detect chemical differences in the breath of patients with suspected bacterial infection at point of care - Accelerating diagnostics and therapeutics for Tuberculosis
(Engineering/ Chemistry/ Life Sciences)
Investigators: Dr James Covington, Dr Elizabeth Fullam, Prof. Matt Gibson
Aims: Generation of novel diagnostic TB signatures and identification of novel compounds with anti-tubercular activity - Polymer-conjugated cyclic peptide nanotubes as next generation antibiotics
(Chemistry/Life Sciences)
Investigators: Prof. Sebastien Perrier, Prof. Chris Dowson
Aims: Demonstrate the activation of polymer-CPNT systems upon cleavage of the polymer shell, and to explore libraries of CPNT formed in situ as a strategy to overcome drug resistance.
- Warwick Antimicrobial Screening Facility
(campus-wide)
Aims: Allow the culture of a wide range of bacteria (antibiotic susceptible and resistant), fungi and human cell lines, and provide an ‘open access’ facility for academics across Warwick to test the activities of new small molecules, polymers and new natural product chemical libraries. - Isotopically labelled lipid II enabling antibiotic discovery
(Chemistry/ Life Sciences)
Investigators: Dr Jozef Lewandowski, Prof. Chris Dowson
Aims: Develop a new analytical platform for atomic resolution understanding of natural and synthetic lipid II binding antibiotics. Antibiotics that bind lipid II are substrates that are already known to be resilient to emergence of resistance, e.g. vancomycin, teixobactin, nisin.
- Sandpit Winner - Towards personalised empirical antibiotic guidance – a pilot study
(Mathematics/Public Health England/NHS Consultant)
Investigators: Prof. Matt Keeling, Dr Esther Robinson, Dr Ed Moran
Aims: Firstly, demonstrate that it is possible to integrate and analyse retrospective data to identify factors associated with resistant infection and poor outcome; Secondly, by using this information, develop algorithms to guide a personalised antibiotic recommendation based on a specific patient’s risk factors.
- Sandpit Winner - Antifungal resistance and epidemiology of Candida glabrata isolates in critically ill patients using novel genomic sequencing technology
(Medicine/ Life Sciences / Public Health England Bioinformatician)
Investigators: Dr Chrystala Constantinidou, Prof. Chris Dowson, Dr Miruna David, Dr Abid Hussain
Aims: Obtain a broad picture of the genetic diversity of C. glabrata isolates and of key mutations/SNPs associated with resistance to antifungal drugs.
