Award details

National Biofilms Innovation Centre

Reference	BB/R012415/1
Principal Investigator / Supervisor	Professor Jeremy Webb
Co-Investigators / Co-Supervisors	Professor Morgan Alexander, Professor Rosalind Allen, Dr Aidan Brown, Professor Miguel Camara, Professor Jonas Emsley, Professor Saul Faust, Professor Kim Hardie, Professor Charles William Keevil, Professor Timothy G Leighton, Professor Cait MacPhee, Dr Luisa Martinez-Pomares, Professor Alexander Morozov, Professor Wilson Poon, Professor Guy Poppy, Professor Rasmita Raval, Professor Peter Smith, Professor Nicola Stanley-Wall, Professor Michael Stocks, Dr Paul Stoodley, Dr Bartlomiej Waclaw, Professor Paul Williams, Dr Tiffany Wood
Institution	University of Southampton
Department	Sch of Biological Sciences
Funding type	Research
Value (£)	12,801,513
Status	Completed
Type	Research Grant
Start date	01/12/2017
End date	30/11/2022
Duration	60 months

Abstract

Technical Summary NBIC will work across 4 strategic themes to prevent, detect, manage and engineer biofilms, capitalising on world-class underpinning research to address sectoral challenges identified with our industry partners. NBIC will work with industry, regulators, funders and policymakers, and engage the public in a two-way dialogue to refine the research and industrial strategy agenda, shape public funding initiatives and determine strategy for industrial pre- and post-competitive research. The strategy and remit of the 4 themes are as follows: PREVENT: Prevention of early stage microbial adhesion and colonisation events at surfaces. Advanced techniques to create next-generation biofilm prevention strategies. DETECT: Accurate, quantitative biofilm detection and metrology across multiple scales through innovative sensing, tracking and diagnostic technologies. Identify and exploit new and known biofilm-specific biomarkers. MANAGE: To kill, remove or control established biofilms by understanding and exploiting their life cycle dynamics and development across a range of environments and levels of complexity. ENGINEER: Harness the benefits of complex microbial consortia from knowledge of their composition, function, ecology and evolution. Exploit biofilm understanding at the interface with engineering and process applications. CROSS-CUTTING THEME: PREDICTIVE MODELLING. This theme will exploit our expertise in computational and mathematical tools for understanding, modelling and simulating biological and physical processes and activities of biofilms. By addressing the scientific challenges and strategy outlined above, NBIC will help companies create value by benefiting from biofilms or by addressing the challenges that they face caused by biofilms.

Summary

The University of Southampton will receive the award on behalf of the lead institutions of the NBIC consortium (University of Southampton, University of Liverpool, University of Nottingham and the University of Edinburgh). The University of Southampton will also be responsible for the disbursement of funds to the lead institutions of the NBIC consortium. The Grant Holder will be Jeremy Webb (Principle Investigator, Corresponding) on behalf of the NBIC Consortium lead investigators Jeremy Webb (Southampton), Rasmita Raval (Liverpool), Cait MacPhee (Edinburgh) and Miguel Camara (Nottingham)". Biofilms are central to some of the most urgent global challenges and exert considerable economic impact across industry sectors. They are a leading cause of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), forecast to cost $100tn in world GDP and 10m deaths by 2050. Biofilms are the major cause of chronic infections, costing the NHS £2bn p.a. Contamination, energy losses and damage by biofilms impact on the £70bn UK foods industry, the $2.8 trillion consumer products sector, and $117bn global coatings industry. Biofilm management is essential to deliver clean and globally sustainable drinking water and food security. The National Biofilms Innovation Centre (NBIC) will deliver a future where biofilms can be effectively controlled and harnessed, increasing value for the companies we work with, and providing pathways to impact for world-class research across the UK. NBIC will bring UK companies from across the industrial sectors around the table with the best of UK biofilm research to accelerate the adoption of new technologies into company products and services. Where companies are not ready to take an opportunity to market, we will provide world class entrepreneurial training to maximise the success of our spin outs NBIC will provide a focus for industry partners to access biofilm research across the UK, simplifying knowledge transfer and catalysing collaboration. Working with industry, NBIC will produce sector roadmaps, identifying the unmet needs of the sectors, and the key scientific, commercial, technical and regulatory barriers to meet them. The roadmaps will provide a key context for the evolution of the NBIC science strategy. NBIC will leverage existing investments in research, facilities and people to address near and long term industrial and societal challenges and to establish a pathway for the accelerated adoption of new biofilm innovations and technologies, whilst significantly promoting the expansion of a highly trained researcher workforce in this field. We will develop the next generation of leaders in biofilms with bespoke scientific, entrepreneurial and leadership training, and we will undertake International exchanges of students and staff with SCELSE biofilms centre in Singapore. We will engage with all of the university doctoral colleges with a view to submitting a bid to the 2019 DTP call. We will draw on the considerable outreach and engagement experience of the NBIC partners to share and develop tailored events and activities suitable for primary and secondary schools, CPD for teachers, science festivals, youth groups and community-based organisations throughout the UK.

Impact Summary

Impact summary The National Biofilms Innovation Centre will bring together academic researchers from multiple disciplines; facilitate existing academic/industry collaborations where relevant and appropriate; broker new interactions between the academic research base and industry; and draw upon world-class underpinning bioscience to address unmet industry needs. NBIC will create the world's premier centre for biofilms training and research, and ensure its translation into capacity building and innovation. NBIC will engage with industry by facilitating knowledge integration and capacity building. NBIC will be a single point of call for companies with challenges that relate to biofilm technologies, whether the challenge is to prevent (e.g. in human health applications), detect (e.g. in potable water systems), manage (e.g. in wastewater treatment plants) or engineer (e.g. in industrial biotechnology applications). Given this wide field of potential sectors, NBIC will draw on and facilitate links with all relevant disciplines across the physical, life, medical and social sciences. The goal is bidirectional: to ensure the maximum impact of world-class underpinning science, as well as respond directly to unmet industry needs. NBIC will achieve this by: establishing sector-specific roadmaps to educate and influence the academic base; the allocation of joint academic/industry collaborative funding; provision of entrepreneurial training for early career researchers and established academics; and the organisation of multiple different types of events, all designed to enrich relationships between Universities and companies. Market analysis indicates that the formation, control, removal or use of biofilm technology has a global impact on economic activity of $5,000bn. Fundamental scientific breakthroughs remain to be made, and the purpose of NBIC is to form a UK-wide collaborative community best able to make these breakthroughs, and ensure their translation into products, services, devices, materials and protocols that will benefit the general public. By delivering a coherent national response to the challenges in biofilms research, NBIC will increase the efficiency and impact of the research across the UK for all the academics that work with it. We will create value for the companies we work with by placing at the heart of our research strategy, solving their problems and helping them access new opportunities. By providing companies and society with new tools to prevent, detect, manage and engineer biofilms we will significantly reduce the harm that they cause and improve clinical outcomes from persistent infections and biofilm related disease. We will develop the next generation of leaders in biofilms with bespoke scientific, entrepreneurial and leadership training, and we will undertake International exchanges of students and staff with SCELSE biofilms centre in Singapore. We will engage with all of the university doctoral colleges with a view to submitting a bid to the 2019 BBSRC DTP call. We will draw on the considerable outreach and engagement experience of the NBIC partners to share and develop tailored events and activities suitable for primary and secondary schools, CPD for teachers, science festivals, youth groups and community-based organisations throughout the UK.

Committee	Not funded via Committee
Research Topics	Industrial Biotechnology, Microbiology
Research Priority	X – Research Priority information not available
Research Initiative	UK Biofilms Programme Biofilms Innovation Centre (IKC) [2017]
Funding Scheme	X – not Funded via a specific Funding Scheme

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