Antibiotics challenge wins Longitude Prize

The antibiotics challenge was voted by the public to win the Longitude Prize, worth £10 million to help solve one of the greatest issues of our time. The prize is run and developed by Nesta, with the Technology Strategy Board as launch funding partner.

The challenge is ‘How can we prevent the rise of resistance to antibiotics?’. 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. This is an issue which our Respiratory Infections Health Integration Team (RuBICoN HIT) are already looking at.

Now that the antibiotics challenge has been chosen, the organisers want everyone, from amateur scientists to the professional scientific community, to try and solve it.

Nesta and the Longitude Committee are finalising the criteria for how to win the £10 million prize, and from the autumn you will be able to submit your entries.

Do you have an idea to solve the antibiotics challenge? Register your interest and they will alert you when submissions open in autumn 2014.