This is the fourteenth JPIAMR joint transnational research funding opportunity, named ‘Disrupting drug Resistance Using Innovative Design’ (DRUID).
DRUID aims to improve:
- treatment of bacterial and fungal infections (including co-infection)
- prevention of the emergence or spread of resistance in humans, animals or plants.
Proposals should focus on licenced antimicrobial agents (antibiotics or antifungals) or agents under pre-clinical and/or early clinical development, and should address at least one of the following topics:
- improvement of drug or plant protection agent efficacy and/or specificity through chemical modifications (including hit to lead optimisation)
- drug or plant protection agent repurposing
- optimisation of drug or plant protection agent combinations, alone or with adjunct therapies (including therapeutic vaccines)
- design and implementation of new strategies (including optimisation of drug doses) for improved application, efficacy and delivery of single or combinations of antimicrobials
- design and implementation of innovative tools, including novel chemistry and/or new materials for improved application, efficacy and delivery of antimicrobials.
Proposals can focus on one or more of the three ‘one health’ settings, namely:
- human health, and/or
- animal health (including wildlife, livestock, fishes, and companion animals), and/or
- plants (including trees and crops).
The following sub-topics are out of scope of the opportunity:
- antiviral and antiparasitic agents
- discovery and/or screening of new compounds, new vaccines and/or new targets
- proposals solely aiming to develop new diagnostics or new companion diagnostics (companion diagnostics in evaluation of the antimicrobials can be examined but they should not be the main topic of the proposal).
Participation of end-users, stakeholders and companies is encouraged.
The estimated UK budget will be €1,800,000. UK-based research teams participating in the opportunity will be funded by BBSRC, EPSRC and MRC, representing UKRI.
Individual consortia may request up to a maximum of €300 000 UK funding, per application. UK-based applicants requesting up to the maximum are welcome, but we also welcome applications requesting under €100 000, to maximise the number of transnational consortia that can be funded.
The UK component of applications should use fEC. The total amount requested must be 80% fEC. In the ’financial plan’ section of the JPIAMR application form, the ’sum requested’ is the 80% fEC amount. The ’total’ is the 100% fEC amount plus any further resources.
