Antibiotic Resistance

• Demonstrated that biocides – commonly used as disinfectants and preservatives – are a key factor in increasing antibiotic resistance of pathogenic bacteria. This evidence has been used by the European Commission to underpin new legislation now in force across the EU.
• Launched the ‘Antibiotic Action’ campaign – a global initiative designed to inform and educate politicians, policy makers and the public all about the need for discovery, research and development of new antibiotics as well as appropriate use.
• Showed that use of certain antibiotics in veterinary medicine can cause resistance in bacterial species which then present potential risks to human health, leading to amendment of international policy on the use of antibiotics in food producing animals through the WHO and FDA.
• Used whole genome sequencing to reveal a new mechanism of resistance in a strain of Salmonella from a patient with an untreatable infection.
• Discovered how nature controls the level at which E.coli clones evolve to take over the human gut using a type of evolutionary selection called ‘negative frequency dependency selection’.
• Received £1.3 million funding from the Newton Fund, matched by the Chinese National Science Funding Council, to build an international research network to explore and address factors behind the rise in antibacterial resistance in China.
• Developed a new method to identify resistance genes in gut bacteria by comparing the three-dimensional structures of known antibiotic resistance enzymes to the proteins that are produced by gut bacteria.
• Established that potentially harmful microbes overwhelm the healthy gut microbiota in intensive care patients, in collaboration with the Quadram Institute and partners.

✓ Only use antibiotics when prescribed by a certified health professional
✓ Never demand antibiotics if your health worker says you don’t need them
✓ Get vaccinated
✓ Always follow your health worker’s advice when using antibiotics
✓ Never share or use leftover antibiotics
✓ Prevent infections by regularly washing your hands, handling food in a safe/clean manner, avoiding close contact with sick people, practising safer sex and keeping vaccinations up to date