Today, patients undergoing routine treatments, such as cancer treatment, organ transplantation and hip and knee replacements, are routinely given antibiotics to prevent infection during therapy. The frequency of antibiotic resistant infections is increasing, meaning that there are more and more deaths from antibiotic resistant bacteria.

Sepsis is a common cause of death in the UK with over 44,000 deaths each year. More people die from sepsis than lung cancer (35,000) and bowel cancer (16,000) and many of these sepsis deaths are due to untreatable antibiotic resistant infections. If there were no new antibiotics, then any infections become untreatable. The failure to develop new antibiotics is of great concern. Antibiotic resistance is life-threatening, with the young and old being most at risk of resistant infections. This is because these two groups have low immunity, making them more susceptible to infection.

A group of leading UK university and company scientists and clinicians all with an interest in antibiotic resistance have been meeting informally on a regular basis over the past three years to establish what can be done to kick start antibiotic drug development. Drawn from some of the country’s leading universities, the network known as Antibiotic Discovery UK agreed during one meeting early in 2014 that a new charity should be created to tackle the antibiotic resistance challenge. The charity’s name was decided by competition and a student at the University of Oxford won the prize for the best name ‘Antibiotic Research UK’. The Charity was registered with the Charity Commission in July 2014 (registered charity no 1157884) and the first AGM was held on Monday 18 August 2014 at the Royal York Hotel, York.

Typically it can take up to 15 years and expenditure of many hundreds of millions of pounds to develop a new drug. ANTRUK aims to significantly reduce these timelines and costs by using smart approaches which will be very different to conventional drug development procedures. The Charity’s research focus initially will be on preserving our existing antibiotics rather than trying to find new ones.

Multi-drug resistant (MDR) Gram-negative bacteria are the major risk to modern medicine.

Of particular concern are antibiotic resistant bacteria associated with three different species, Klebsiella pneuomoniae and Escherichia coli and Acinetobacter baumanii. All three species can be found in the mouth, skin or gut

If resistance arises to colistin, which it will, then there will be no treatments left.

A number of authorities globally have spoken about the rapidly-emerging crisis. There is an urgent need to invent new antibiotics, though it may already be too late for this to happen in time and at the scale required. Therefore it is essential that we protect current antibiotics, particularly ‘last line of defence’ drugs, from resistance, and develop ‘Antibiotic Resistance Breakers’ (ARBs) that break the resistance that is sure to emerge.

In particular the charity will focus on repurposing or repositioning existing drugs.

This could involve

1.taking drugs that are currently used for one indication such as cancer treatment or heart disease and examining them for antibiotic activity

3.combining one or more drugs together with the antibiotic to see if the antibiotic resistance can be overcome (Antibiotic Resistance Breakers).

The first three of the Charity’s research programmes will focus on Antibiotic Resistance Breakers against three widely used antibiotics to which resistance in Gram-negative bacteria has developed. Resistance can occur in a number of ways. One of these involves the loss of pores in the bacterial cell wall so that the antibiotic cannot penetrate the bacteria. If new pores could be created by the ARB then resistance might be overcome…

For more info go to http://www.antibioticresearch.org.uk/

In order to support this charity I have completed a coast to coast cycle ride from Whitehaven to Marsden Bay a total of nearly 136miles and almost 9,000 ft of climbing across the Lake District and the Pennines. I had planned to do this in one day but I had a significant and painful accident while competing in a in a cycle sportive about 3 weeks before this event and the damage to my thigh and groin muscles meant that I had to scale back my ambition and completed it in 2 (67miles day1, 69miles day2). Unlike other charity requests you are not contributing to a prospective event I have done this and endured/enjoyed the event.  This charity will help all of you so I hope that you can contribute, though I know you are bombarded by so many other requests.  Any donation, no matter what size will contribute to a charity that promises to help all of us and our families…