A national partnership with the NIHR Birmingham BRC, Oxford and Leeds will accelerate research to personalise treatment and tackle antimicrobial resistance.
Professor Alan McNally, Head of the School of Infection, Inflammation and Immunology and Professor in Microbial Evolutionary Genomics at the University of Birmingham, will play a leading role in a major new national initiative to tackle one of the world’s most urgent health challenges — infection and antimicrobial resistance (AMR).
The National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) has launched a new Translational Research Collaboration (TRC) in Infection and AMR, bringing together leading experts from across the UK to accelerate the development of innovative solutions to prevent, diagnose and treat infections — particularly those caused by drug-resistant pathogens.
Through the NIHR Birmingham Biomedical Research Centre (BRC), Professor McNally will co-lead the TRC’s Diagnostics and Precision Medicine workstream alongside colleagues from the Universities of Oxford and Leeds. This workstream will focus on integrating host- and pathogen-based diagnostics, metagenomic technologies, and real-world data to personalise treatments, improve early detection, and guide clinical decision-making.
This new collaboration gives us a unique opportunity to pool expertise, infrastructure and innovation across the UK to deliver real-world solutions that improve patient care and public health.
Speaking about the new collaboration, Professor McNally said: "Antimicrobial resistance is one of the defining health challenges of our time. This new collaboration gives us a unique opportunity to pool expertise, infrastructure and innovation across the UK to deliver real-world solutions that improve patient care and public health."
Hosted by the NIHR BRC at Imperial College London, the TRC will bring together partners from industry, public bodies, charities, funders and SMEs, with current collaborators including Moderna, UKHSA, MHRA, the Wellcome Trust, and UKRI, to strengthen the UK’s research capacity in infection and AMR.
Professor Marian Knight, NIHR Scientific Director for Infrastructure said: “Antimicrobial resistance is an area which needs urgent research across multi-professional teams working with the public and industry. The NIHR is uniquely positioned to bring together the right people and partnerships to tackle it.”
“This exciting new addition to our TRC network, in a crucial area of research, has the potential to drive the game-changing research we need.”
The TRC in Infection and AMR will focus on three critical priorities:
Developing new solutions to prevent and treat infections
Improving clinical decision-making
Ensuring the right treatment is used at the right time
Professor Graham Cooke, Chair of the new TRC, added: "We will reinvigorate, and unify, for the first time, the broad expertise in infection and AMR across the experimental medicine and early phase research infrastructure in the UK into a cohesive, dynamic partnership. This will facilitate industry engagement and further collaboration, contributing towards increasing the UK’s capacity and capability in this critical research field."
Professor McNally’s research in microbial genomics focuses on the evolutionary genomics of pathogenesis and antimicrobial resistance in bacterial pathogens. His leadership in this national collaboration reflects the University of Birmingham’s world-class expertise in infection biology, diagnostics innovation, and translational research.
About the University of Birmingham
The University of Birmingham is ranked amongst the world’s top 100 institutions. Its work brings people from across the world to Birmingham, including researchers, educators and more than 40,000 students from over 150 countries.
England’s first civic university, the University of Birmingham is proud to be rooted in of one of the most dynamic and diverse cities in the country. A member of the Russell Group and a founding member of the Universitas 21 global network of research universities, the University of Birmingham has been changing the way the world works for more than a century.
The University of Birmingham is committed to achieving operational net zero carbon. It is seeking to change society and the environment positively, and use its research and education to make a major global contribution to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Find out at birmingham.ac.uk/sustainability.
The University of Birmingham is a founding member of Birmingham Health Partners (BHP), a strategic alliance which transcends organisational boundaries to rapidly translate healthcare research findings into new diagnostics, drugs and devices for patients. Birmingham Health Partners is a strategic alliance between nine organisations who collaborate to bring healthcare innovations through to clinical application:
About the National Institute for Health and Care Research
The mission of the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) is to improve the health and wealth of the nation through research. We do this by:
NIHR is funded by the Department of Health and Social Care. Its work in low and middle income countries is principally funded through UK international development funding from the UK government.
This study has been delivered through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Birmingham Biomedical Research Centre (BRC). The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NIHR or the Department of Health and Social Care.
The NIHR Birmingham Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) is part of the NIHR and hosted by University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust (UHBFT) in partnership with the University of Birmingham (UoB). The BRC’s research programme focuses on inflammation and the diagnosis, prevention and treatment of its associated long-term illnesses.
Head of School of Infection, Inflammation and Immunology
Staff profile for Professor Alan McNally, Professor in Microbial Genomics, Head of the School of Infection, Inflammation and Immunology, College of Medicine and Health, University of Birmingham
