MRC Science Showcase in Scotland
February 2019: Researchers from the Centre for Inflammation Research attended the Scottish Parliament to highlight to MSPs novel approaches to address the global challenge of antimicrobial resistance
The progressive emergence of antimicrobial resistance is ineluctable and represents a major threat to human health and everyday medical practice. The MRC-funded SHIELD consortium, led by Professor David Dockrell at the University of Edinburgh Centre for Inflammation Research, seeks to address this global problem. SHIELD aims to develop translational research platforms to refine our understanding of critical microbicidal mechanisms and identify novel therapeutics to re-calibrate defective innate immune responses in patients with infectious diseases.
The MRC Science Showcase in Scotland event, held at The Scottish Parliament on 6 February 2019, provided a valuable opportunity to highlight this collaborative work, and its importance, to Members of the Scottish Parliament. In addition to the critical discovery science underpinning this work, we were able to illustrate the SHIELD consortium's commitment to technological innovation, translation to patients and clinical trials, and collaboration with industry. Lewis Macdonald MSP (host of the event) and Richard Lochhead MSP (Minister for Higher Education, Further Education and Science) were among the MSPs we discussed our work with.
This event also allowed us to showcase some of the important public engagement work led by Dr Donald Davidson, including the popular educational card game 'Supercytes'.
Feedback from MSPs was positive and we hope to have raised awareness of the emerging problem of antimicrobial resistance, and what we are doing to address this.
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