Preventing infectious diseases and quickly and correctly diagnosing them are two key ways of minimising the burden of infectious disease on people and the need for treatment of these diseases once people have contracted them.
Prevention and diagnosis are therefore cornerstones of effectively managing the wider threat of AMR. These strategies were highlighted a decade ago by Lord Jim O’Neill in his Review on Antimicrobial Resistance when AMR was first raised as an imminent threat to society’s health and wellbeing. Their role is still recognised, with high profile calls for development of new ways of preventing and diagnosing infections caused by microbes coming from global organisations such as the Longitude Prize on AMR and, most recently, from the Combatting Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria Biopharmaceutical Accelerator (CARB-X).
Biophys recently had the privilege of being part of the team that reviewed how data technologies have been used to counter AMR. This review confirmed the role and value of prevention and diagnosis as cornerstone strategies in fighting AMR and highlighted some practical steps to move this emerging field forward.
We continue to look forward to seeing how the power of advanced computing and computational capability can be harnessed to design, develop and deliver tech-based solutions that bring the benefit of prevention and quick and accurate diagnosis of infectious disease wherever it is needed globally.
