Project description
Fighting the growing threat of antimicrobial resistance
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a growing health crisis; only in 2019, it caused 5 million deaths worldwide (similar to the toll of the COVID-19 pandemic). Without new solutions, AMR could become one of the leading causes of death in the EU. The development of antibiotics is costly and slow because bacteria evolve quickly. Understanding how AMR develops and spreads is essential to protect both new and existing treatments. With the support of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the ENDAMR project will train researchers to fight AMR through innovative approaches. These include studying gut microbiomes, tracking gene transfer in bacteria and exploring better antibiotic combinations. ENDAMR will also prepare scientists to build a strong defence against this urgent threat.
Objective
Antibiotic resistance (AMR) is a major public health issue, with 5 million deaths in 2019 linked to AMR worldwide. These numbers are comparable to the toll of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Without new solutions, AMR is projected to soon become one of the leading causes of death in the EU. Addressing this challenge requires the development of new, effective antibiotics, but this alone is not sufficient due to the rapid evolution of bacteria. Understanding the drivers and mechanisms of AMR is vital to delay or reverse resistance in both existing and new antibiotics, especially since no new broad-spectrum antibiotics have been developed since the 1990s and their development is a lengthy process with high attrition rates.
The ENDAMR doctoral network aims to better equip researchers in Europe to understand and develop new strategies to tackle AMR. WP1 focuses on how AMR affects the fitness of pathogenic bacteria in the gut microbiome, aiming to identify microbiome characteristics that predispose to AMR infections and to explore microbiome-based interventions. WP2 examines AMR acquisition via horizontal gene transfer, investigating evolutionary pathways, host genetics, environmental factors, dissemination, and AMR reservoirs. WP3 is dedicated to understanding the frequency, mechanisms, and clinical implications of antibiotic resistance, with a particular focus on the less studied aspects of heteroresistance and tolerance, and to developing diagnostic tools and predictive models. WP4 explores the combination of antibiotics to enhance treatment outcomes and potentially prevent or reverse AMR, based on understanding the interplay of resistance mechanisms.
ENDAMR will also prepare doctoral candidates for various career paths beyond academia, including teaching, science communication, and entrepreneurship. Candidates will gain transferable skills and learn from industry role models, equipping them to make significant contributions to solving the AMR crisis.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesmicrobiologybacteriology
- social scienceseconomics and businessbusiness and managemententrepreneurship
- medical and health scienceshealth sciencespublic healthepidemiologypandemics
- medical and health scienceshealth sciencesinfectious diseasesRNA virusescoronaviruses
- medical and health sciencesbasic medicinepharmacology and pharmacypharmaceutical drugsantibiotics
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Keywords
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Main Programme
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-DN - HORIZON TMA MSCA Doctoral NetworksCoordinator
69117 Heidelberg
Germany