MOD seeks innovative ways to develop antibiotics
Will launch call for proposals to industry and academia on 25 June
The Ministry of Defence (MOD) is looking for innovative ways to speed up the development of antibiotics, which could be used to support the UK’s Armed Forces.
Recognising that such development by the pharmaceutical industry can be time-consuming, and involves a high risk of failure, the MOD’s Centre for Defence Enterprise (CDE), part of the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, is seeking fresh ideas from industry and academia.
Novel methods to improve such processes would benefit the antimicrobial development industry as a whole. The MOD has a particular interest in that it could provide protection to Armed Forces against bacterial pathogens, which they might be exposed to through working in different environments across the world and to protect against the threat of biological warfare.
CDE is looking for short-term, proof-of-concept research proposals for innovative techniques, tools and approaches to facilitate the early stages of antimicrobial drug development. They should aim to provide a more reliable and/or rapid antimicrobial drug development process.
CDE is looking for short-term, proof-of-concept research proposals for innovative techniques
In particular, the CDE is looking for ways to improve specific target inhibitor identification, structure-based drug design and potency for intracellular pathogens. The priorities are approaches applicable to broad-spectrum antibacterials (rather than pathogen-specific antibacterials), particularly Gram-positive and Gram-negative pathogens. This call for proposals is not aiming to identify novel antibacterial targets nor approaches only applicable to specific targets.
The call is to be launched on Tuesday, 25 June at an event near Oxford and will close on Thursday, 29 August 2013 at 1700 hrs. The launch event will consist of briefings and opportunities for networking. All proposals must be submitted via the CDE online Portal.
Register for the launch event, which is free of charge, via www.science.mod.uk