Longitudinal antibiotics

Published by Tony Quinlan on

The other week I pointed out the initial voting to decide what the topic of the upcoming Longitude Problem was going to be.

The six possibilities were:

  • Flight
    How can we fly without damaging the environment?
  • Water
    How can we ensure everyone can have access to safe and clean water?
  • Paralysis
    How can we restore movement to those with paralysis?
  • Food
    How can we ensure everyone has nutritious, sustainable food?
  • Dementia
    How can we help people with dementia live independently for longer?
  • Antibiotics

The public vote decided that Antibiotics is the one on which to focus:

In order to tackle growing levels of antimicrobial resistance, the challenge set for the Longitude Prize is to create a cost-effective, accurate, rapid and easy-to-use test for bacterial infections that will allow health professionals worldwide to administer the right antibiotics at the right time.

The results came out last week and the panel are now defining the exact scope of the problem.

And this morning’s newspapers brought this not-unconnected story to underline the nature of the challenge:

Antibiotic resistance: Cameron warns of medical “dark ages”