Antibiotics transformed healthcare in the 20th century and are still considered one of the greatest medical achievements of the era. Today, we still rely on antibiotics to treat everything from minor cuts to life-threatening bacterial infections and to prevent infection after surgery. These drugs drastically improved our quality of life and increased lifespan. 

In the 21st century, antibiotic overuse and misuse has led to antibiotics rapidly becoming ineffective resulting in a fall in life expectancy. Antimicrobial resistance, specifically antibacterial resistance, now poses a global threat to human life. Resistance occurs when antibiotics are rendered ineffective against the bacteria they are engineered to fight.  

We need urgent action to halt resistance and to accelerate new treatments for bacterial infection. The University of Bristol has a number of research projects, programmes and initiatives that are working towards understanding AMR better and finding solutions for this escalating global issue. 

The AMR research community at Bristol ('Bristol AMR') is a cross-faculty research network supported by the University's Elizabeth Blackwell Institute for Health Research as one of their six Research Strands, which are funded through the Wellcome Trust Institutional Strategic Support Fund (ISSF).