Bioscientist Dr Janice Spencer is among a team of scientists awarded £4.8 million in funding from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) to address one of humanity’s most pressing challenges: antimicrobial resistance (AMR).
Eight new networks, combining different research specialisms, have been launched as part of UKRI’s tackling infections strategic theme.
Dr Spencer, a lecturer in the Department of Biological and Biomedical Sciences at Glasgow Caledonian, is co-lead on the Futures AMR Network (FAN), which is led by Queen’s University Belfast.
FAN will support early career researchers across a range of disciplines to become future leaders in the AMR field. It will tackle AMR in the areas of agri-food health, environment and medicine using approaches in the arts and artificial intelligence (AI), behavioural economics, clinical engineering and discovery.
Dr Spencer said: “I am delighted to be awarded this funding and excited to start working with the newly formed, dynamic transdisciplinary team of researchers aiming to develop a network to tackle antimicrobial resistance and identify gaps in knowledge.
“This novel network aims to focus on the development of early career researchers, providing them with a platform allowing the amplification of their often-underrepresented voices.”
Launched in April 2018, UKRI is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT). Working with the government, it invests £8 billion a year in research and innovation.
Dr Colin Miles, Head of Strategy, Advanced Manufacturing and Clean Growth at UKRI, said:
“Tackling the creeping pandemic of anti-microbial resistance – increasing resistance to antibiotics – is a large, complex problem. Ten million people each year are expected to lose their lives to it by 2050.
“Rather than taking single-discipline approaches, we need researchers from across disciplines to come together and look at all aspects of the problem – from human behaviour and how we grow crops and rear animals for consumption to how we manage the environment or use technology, clinical management strategies or challenge established cultural norms.”