Published: 27 October 2023
Dr Catrin Moore, Reader in Global Health and Infectious Diseases at St George’s, is co-leading a major new project called Knocking Out AMR to raise the profile, awareness and promote feasible and effective solutions to minimise antimicrobial resistance.
Dr Moore’s recent work highlighted that antibiotic resistance (AMR) is one of the most urgent global threats to public health which killed up to five million people globally in 2019.
Not only does AMR take the lives of many, but it has a devasting impact on their quality of life, the healthcare systems, economies, the environment and animal health.
The aim of the campaign is to bring together and amplify the voices of microbiologists in academia, clinical settings, industry and wider, and to engage policymakers to develop innovative solutions to minimise the increasing global threat of AMR.
Bringing together AMR experts to find solutions
As well as leading the Knocking Out AMR five year programme which launched on 17th October, Dr Moore is also the co-Chair for the Microbiology Society's Impact and Influence committee. She said: “The O’Neill report first brought antimicrobial resistance into our headlines, proposing concrete actions to tackle the problem. While we now have more evidence of this global health threat, little action has occurred, and resistant bacterial infections continue to devastate the health of our world today."
"We need to find solutions to minimise AMR globally. We need to come together as a community to provide solutions to minimise this problem. By rallying key experts in AMR from all over the world, we plan to identify effective and accessible solutions that can be applied globally.”
- Dr Catrin Moore, Reader in Global Health and Infectious Diseases at St George's, University of London -
Key focus areas
Knocking Out AMR will focus on three priority solutions:
- Therapeutics and vaccines
Key activities include research and development of preventative measures and alternative therapeutics, interdisciplinary co-working in the antimicrobial pipeline, and the reduction of inappropriate antimicrobial exposure.
- Diagnostics and surveillance
The project will support effective cross-sector integration of the unmet needs of those working across diagnostics and surveillance through effective knowledge sharing in the UK and internationally.
The key focus for this project is to initiate knowledge exchange between AMR experts and policymakers to drive policy discourse in the UK and worldwide, all whilst ensuring the full diversity of voices of microbiologists working on AMR are heard.
Find out more about AMR research at St George’s