Dr Liz Fullam, a Wellcome Trust/Royal Society Sir Henry Dale Fellow in the School of Life Sciences, has been awarded a £237,000 Innovation Grant from the MRC and BBSRC’s Tackling Anti-Microbial Resistance (AMR) initiative. The award is in collaboration with Dr Matthew Gibson (Department of Chemistry) and is one of eight grants awarded in this round. The AMR initiative is a cross-Council call to drive forward innovative research in order to: understand the resistant bacterium at molecular, cell and community levels; understand the context of host/pathogen interactions in humans or animals; identify and validate novel targets (both host and bacterial) for new anti-bacterials; understand transmission of resistance in human or animal hosts.

The two-year project will focus on Mycobacterium tuberculosis, one of the largest causes of mortality from a single infectious agent world-wide. The research groups of Dr Liz Fullam and Dr Matt Gibson will combine their expertise and utilise chemical biology to identify new therapeutics and diagnostics for this deadly pathogen.