[Perspectives] Alison Holmes: sustaining global attention on AMR

Abstract

Alison Holmes is making plans. As the Director of the Fleming Initiative, a global partnership led by Imperial College London and Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, to combat antimicrobial resistance (AMR), she wants to use the 2028 centenary of Sir Alexander Fleming's discovery of penicillin “to reflect upon it and honour its legacy. But also as a focus to make sure that, in spite of the geopolitical changes related to funding, that we keep on shining a spotlight on AMR as a major global challenge that disproportionately effects the vulnerable and leaves people behind, and that research funding remains largely unrepresentative of who it most affects.” Holmes, who is also Professor of Infectious Diseases at Imperial College London and the David Price Evans Chair in Infectious Diseases and Global Health at the University of Liverpool in the UK, explains, “We need to maintain a sustained focus, ensuring the attention of policy and political leaders, and also embedding awareness in civil society and the young, so they can drive it.