The laboratory is once again a partner in a JPIAMR project: COMBAT-AMR.

Antimicrobial combinations are an essential therapeutic strategy to combat antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and treat complex infections. So far, combinations have generally been derived empirically using sub-optimal drug choices and dosing ratios, including beta-lactam/beta-lactamase inhibitor combination treatments. Defining the optimal drug combination of antibiotics and the associated dosing schedules to maximise efficacy and minimise the risk for AMR selection is complex and requires extensive preclinical development.To advance development and optimization of combination treatments, and exploit their currently underused potential, there is an urgent need for alignment and integration of the assays to evaluate combination therapy novel suitable experimental and computational methodologies.

This project aims to develop a standardised toolbox of connected experimental and computational approaches tailored to the pre-clinical design of antibiotic combination treatments, which addresses current hurdles in the design and evaluation of antibacterial combinations, which are optimized towards treatment of AMR-associated pathogens and preventing AMR emergence. The tools and workflows will be applied to exemplar combinations to further evaluate their potential, and to demonstrate the application of the developed toolbox. The results will be used to seek regulatory qualification for the developed workflows and to guide the development of combination clinical breakpoints.