New funding for The Pandemic Institute’s Liverpool – Hong Kong Partnership
Researchers from across Liverpool recently travelled to Hong Kong for the launch of a new programme of work supported by £250,000 from The Shaw Foundation – the HK-based philanthropic institution for welfare and wellbeing.
The pump-priming funding will support scientific collaboration between The Pandemic Institute’s founding partners – the University of Liverpool, the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, and Liverpool John Moores University – and counterparts at the University of Hong Kong, the HK Polytechnic University, and the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Funding will be distributed across nine collaborative projects, with principal investigators drawn from all six institutions. The projects will address a range of high-consequence and emerging infectious threats, including influenza, MERS coronavirus, Ebola, COVID-19, antimicrobial-resistant bacteria, enteroviruses causing brain infections and hepatitis E.
LJMU will lead a project to better understand how bacteria and viruses evolve to resist drugs designed to kill them.
Antimicrobial resistance is a growing global crisis, accelerated by the misuse of antimicrobials, poor infection control, and global trade and can render procedures like surgery high-risk if infections cannot be treated.
Dr Ismini Nakouti, of LJMU’s School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences teams up with Dr Qing Xiong, of Hong Kong Polytechnic University, to investigate Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CPE) one of the most dangerous, and even resistant to last-line antibiotics.
In Hong Kong, CPE infections have risen sharply in recent years, and this much-needed project will collect resistant bacteria from hospitals in Hong Kong and Liverpool, sequence their genomes, and study how resistance genes spread and evolve.
Professor Tom Solomon, Director of The Pandemic Institute (TPI), said the new funding would allow the Institute’s teams to address key viral and bacterial hazards with epidemic or pandemic potential.
“Our teams are applying complementary scientific and technological approaches – including artificial intelligence and machine learning, novel diagnostics, therapeutic innovation, epidemiological modelling, genomic analysis, and disease mechanism studies – to strengthen preparedness and response capacity worldwide.”
Dr Raymond Chan, Chairman of The Shaw Foundation said: “During COVID, Hong Kong universities made vital contributions through research and education, playing a key role to combat the disease. As we look ahead to the challenges of future outbreaks, we recognize that international collaboration is more essential than ever. We hope this programme paves the way for more international effort to combat a foe which operates without boundaries.”
