The importance of the threat posed by antimicrobial resistance is one of the major themes recognised through the launch of a new National Biofilms Innovation Centre (NBIC), led by the University of Southampton.
Supported by a commitment of £26 million over the next 5 years, including £12.5M funding from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Centre (BBSRC) and Innovate UK, with additional support from universities and industry, NBIC will bring The UK’s world-class expertise in the research of biofilms together with UK companies from across industrial sectors to accelerate the adoption of new technologies into live products and services.
NBIC is a multi-site Innovation and Knowledge Centre, led by the University of Southampton together with a core partnership comprising the Universities of Edinburgh, Liverpool and Nottingham. The entire consortium comprises 11 universities2, three research centres – Diamond Synchotron, the Hartree Centre and the Quadram Institute – and three major global academic partners – The Nanyang Technologial University (Singapore), the Montana State University (USA) and the University of Copenhagen (Denmark). NBIC will also collaborate with a network of over 50 companies, ranging from SMEs to large companies, from across sectors to exploit the UK’s global leadership in biofilms. The AMR theme stretches across all universities and industry partners and NBIC’s inclusive model means that other universities and companies conducting biofilm research can participate and benefit from partnership with the NBIC consortium.
“This new National Biofilms Innovation Centre is poised to create a fusion of world-class interdisciplinary research and industry partnerships to deliver breakthrough science and technologies to control and exploit biofilms,” said NAMRIP member, Professor Jeremy Webb, Principal Investigator and Co-Director for NBIC. “The UK is home to some of the most advanced research and commercial opportunities for the exploitation of biofilms so combining our talents gives us the best opportunity to establish a national, and international, agenda to tackle some of the world’s biggest challenges and work seamlessly across academic and industry to stimulate growth in this vital area.”
Microbial biofilm research is now a feature of many scientific disciplines including biological sciences, medicine, chemistry, physics, computational modelling, engineering and ocean science. Biofilms are central to some of the most urgent global challenges across diverse fields of application, from medicine to industry to the environment and exert considerable economic and social impact.
Of particular relevance to NAMRIP: they are a leading cause of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), forecast to cost $100T in world GDP and 10M deaths by 2050; and biofilm management is essential to deliver clean and globally sustainable drinking water and food security to prevent infection. Infection prevention is a major NAMRIP research theme.