~£80k seed funding to foster UK-SA collaborations that will eventually lead to the development of innovations to address antimicrobial resistance.
The MRC and the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) have the pleasure of announcing a R9 million (approximately £520k) Newton Fund funding opportunity to foster innovation in addressing antimicrobial resistance (AMR). The research will be conducted through partnerships between South African and UK researchers, with the possibility of researchers from other countries in Sub-Saharan Africa also participating. The research must be led by and include work in the UK and South Africa, but can also include work in other Sub-Saharan African countries.
One focus is rapid point of care diagnostics for gram negative bacteria (E. Coli, P. Aeruginosa, K. Pneumoniae, A. Baumannii and E. cloacae) and this might be of interest to those exploring use of synthetic biology for diagnostics, particularly cell-free systems.
There was a very relevant paper out this week focused on TB:
Zhang, Yihao, et al. "Paired design of dCas9 as a systematic platform for the detection of featured nucleic acid sequences in pathogenic strains." ACS Synthetic Biology (2016).
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acssynbio.6b00215
Deadline 2 Dec 2016
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