18 Nov 2014
Written by Longitude Prize Team
“The Longitude Prize sets out to tackle one of today’s biggest global challenges: bacterial resistance to antibiotics. A challenge prize should foster original approaches to the problem, and incentivise people outside the usual research community to become involved, whilst stimulating secondary innovation along the way. We hope entrants will emulate the spirit of John Harrison – the winner of the original prize – and come forward (and persevere) with really innovative ideas.”
– Lord Martin Rees, chair of the Longitude Committee and Astronomer Royal
At the end of June, you voted for antibiotic resistance to be the focus of the £10 million Longitude Prize. From today, the Prize is open and you can register to enter yourself or your team to take part in the challenge.
We’ve chosen European Antibiotics Awareness Day to open the Longitude Prize for entries. Our recent survey showed that nearly one in five people see antibiotics no longer working as the greatest health threat to the UK, second only to cancer.
Asked to rank antibiotic resistance against the threats on the UK risk register, the public rated antibiotics no longer working as second only to a terrorist attack.
The survey, of 2,000 people in the UK, showed that 78 per cent of respondents are concerned about antibiotic resistance and half (48 per cent) are looking to science for a solution. And this is where you come in!
“The Longitude Prize presents a fantastic opportunity for innovation and invention through rapid diagnosis of infections. This will reduce the use of antibiotics and help to preserve the ones have. Failure to act could mean the end of modern medicine as we know it.”
– Dame Sally Davies, Longitude Committee and UK Chief Medical Officer
The race is now on to develop an affordable point-of-care test to identify when antibiotics are needed and which ones to use, helping conserve antibiotics for future generations and revolutionising the delivery of global healthcare.
You have five years to win the Longitude Prize. Enter Now.
