Collaboration for Prevention and Treatment of MDR Bacterial Infections: COMBINE

Programme(s): H2020-EU.3.1.7. - Innovative Medicines Initiative 2 (IMI2)
Topic(s): IMI2-2018-15-07 - AMR Accelerator programme Pillar A: Capability Building Network to accelerate and validate scientific discoveries
Call for proposal: H2020-JTI-IMI2-2018-15-two-stage

Funding Scheme: IMI2-RIA - Research and Innovation action

Grant agreement ID: 853967

Project description:

Infrastructure for improved treatment and prevention of antimicrobial resistance
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is the ability of a microbe to resist medication that once could efficiently treat it. Resistant microbes require alternative medications or higher doses of antimicrobials - with possible toxicity and side effects. Multidrug resistant (MDR) microbes, or in more severe cases, extensively drug resistant (XDR) microbes are resistant to multiple antimicrobials. The EU-funded COMBINE project will form a coordination and support office for the international consortium managing AMR project delivery and for communication across AMR projects. In addition, COMBINE will establish an IT infrastructure facilitating collection, aggregation, storage, sharing and analysis of vaccine and antibacterial preclinical and clinical data sets. Project partners will also optimise and standardise animal infection models, and develop improved models for translation of preclinical data.

Objective:
The loss of antibiotic effectiveness due to increasing antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a serious threat to global public health. The IMI2 AMR Accelerator will develop new agents to treat and prevent infections caused by MDR and XDR bacteria, including Mycobacterium tuberculosis and non-tuberculous mycobacteria. The COMBINE proposal addresses Pillar A, the Capability Building Network (CBN) of the AMR Accelerator programme.

The COMBINE consortium will form a Coordination and Support Office (CSO) that will support the delivery of projects across the AMR Accelerator, as well as with efficient communication among projects of the Accelerator and within the AMR community. In addition, we will establish an IT infrastructure that will allow for the FAIRification, collection, aggregation, storage, sharing, and analysis of vaccine and antibacterial preclinical and clinical data sets. When setting up the CSO, we will build on learnings from the two IMI ND4BB projects: ENABLE (an antibacterial discovery and development engine) and TRANSLOCATION (which has built an information centre for data sharing).

COMBINE partners will work to accelerate scientific discoveries in the AMR field by optimisation and standardisation of animal infection models, and development of improved models for translation of preclinical animal efficacy data and statistical analysis of clinical data. This will set new standards for the translational and predictive relevance of preclinical data and facilitate optimized design for new clinical trials. Results will feed into study and trial design throughout the AMR Accelerator to achieve more stringent and reliable development programmes.