Event: Longitude Prize AMR Diagnostic Roundtable Seminar

Friday 6th September, 10.00 – 13.00

Longitude Prize AMR diagnostic roundtable event: What role could new rapid diagnostic tests play in improving the use of antibiotics?   

The National Council of Science Museums (NCSM) will hold an opening event for their exhibition: “Superbugs: The End of Antibiotics?” at National Science Center (Delhi). The exhibition, which has been developed in conjunction with the Science Museum Group, London, Wellcome Trust and ICMR, India explains the risks, challenges and strategies related to AMR. Included in the exhibition are five prototypes developed by teams that are competing to win the £8 million Longitude Prize.

The Longitude Prize AMR diagnostic roundtable event will take place on the same day as the exhibition opening. The diagnostics event will be built around diagnostic tests that appear in the Superbugs exhibition and other similar tests. Co-sponsored by NCSM (India), BIRAC (India), Science Museum Group (UK) and Longitude Prize/Nesta (UK).

Agenda

Moderator: Dr Kamini Walia, Program officer AMR, Division of Epidemiology and Communicable Diseases, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and Vikas Manchanda, Associate Professor, Department of Microbiology, Maulana Azad Medical College, Infection Control Officer, Lok Nayak Hospital, Govt of NCT of Delhi

Session I: Keynote opening address: India strategy to address the battle against resistance and efforts being taken to boost the development and implementation of rapid diagnostic tests.

Dr Sundeep Sarin, Advisor Scientist-G, Department of Biotechnology, Government of India

Session II: Snapshot of State-of-the-Art Diagnostics Development & role of Longitude Prize

Professor Till Bachmann, Edinburgh Medical School, University of Edinburgh

Session III: Longitude Prize diagnostic tests: What challenges are they addressing and how they will they make impact in the battle against resistance:

1. U-Sense, Module Innovations (India)
UTI challenge in primary care and hospital settings

Speaker 1: Professor Varsha Gupta, Professor GMCH Chandigarh
Speaker 2: Dr Sachin Dubey, CEO, Module Innovations
Discussion

2. Viral vs bacterial infection tests developed by Attomarker (UK)
Need for quick, rapid point of care test to reduce unnecessary antibiotic use in primary care settings

Speaker 1: Dr Dhanya Dharmapalan, Apollo Hospitals, primary care clinical researcher
Speaker 2: Professor Andrew Shaw, CEO, Attomarker representative
Discussion

3. RAPID, WeInnovate Biosolutions (India) and Septfilo, NanoDx (India)
The need for faster identification of sepsis, antibiotic susceptibility testing and gram status identification for sepsis in emergency room and intensive care units

Speaker 1: Dr Sanjay Battacharya, Senior Consultant, Department of Microbiology, Tata Medical Center, Kolkata

Speaker 2: Dr Milind Choudhari, CEO, WeInnovate Biosolutions 

Speaker 3: Dr Shalini Gupta, Technical Advisor, NanoDx

Speaker 4: Dr Sudeshna Adak, CEO and Director, Omix

Session IV: Open discussion and questions 

Reception: Lunch

Registrations: Please RSVP to [email protected] if you plan to attend the roundtable.

What is the Longitude Prize? Longitude Prize is an international challenge prize competition that will ultimately select one point-of-care diagnostic test to receive a grand pay-out of 8 million British Pounds. The winning point-of-care test will significantly reduce the unnecessary use and overuse of antibiotics and be affordable, accurate and rapid. This test must be practical across the world including low and middle-income countries (LMICs). There are currently 70 teams competing for the Prize from 14 countries with a broad mix of entries from industry and academia. The competition is still open to new registrants. The Longitude Prize is hosted and managed by Nesta Challenges at Nesta, the Innovation Foundation based in London.