London, UK: Longitude Prize is a challenge with a £10 million prize fund to reward a diagnostic test that helps solve the problem of global antibiotic resistance. It is being run by Nesta and supported by Innovate UK as funding partner.
Antibiotic Resistance is one of the biggest challenges facing us today. Bacteria are evolving to become resistant to the antibiotics we have successfully used for decades to treat infections. Longitude Prize is looking to help tackle the problem with a £10 million prize fund for a diagnostic tool that can rule out antibiotic use or help identify an effective antibiotic to treat a patient. Register now and help to change the world.
On average antibiotics add 20 years to each person’s life. The development of antibiotics has been vital to our survival, yet the rise of antimicrobial resistance is threatening to make them ineffective in the future.
The World Health Organization estimates that antibiotics treatments add an average of 20 years to all of our lives. But in the 80 years since the discovery of penicillin, our overuse of antibiotics has put pressure on bacteria to evolve resistance, leading to the emergence of untreatable superbugs that threaten the basis of modern medicine.
Clinicians often prescribe broad spectrum antibiotics to sick patients because doctors have to act quickly on imperfect information. These methods put selective pressure on microbes to evolve resistance to antibiotics.
Evolution
Radical change is needed to address the global problem of growing anti-microbial resistance, to ensure a health care system that can sustainably control and treat infections.
We cannot outpace microbial evolution. A new broad-spectrum antibiotic, if applied with current methods, would eventually meet new forms of resistance. The overall solution involves a long-term path towards a more intelligent use of antibiotics enabling a future of more effective prevention, targeted treatments and smart clinical decision support systems.
Challenge
The challenge for Longitude Prize will be set to create a cheap, accurate, rapid and easy-to-use point of care test kit for bacterial infections.
Impact
Point-of-care test kits will allow more targeted use of antibiotics, and an overall reduction in misdiagnosis and prescription. Effective and accurate point of care tests will form a vital part of the toolkit for stewardship of antibiotics in the future. This will ensure that the antibiotics we have now will be effective for longer and we can continue to control infections during routine and major procedures.
