European project launched to tackle AMR in community care

A European-wide project has been launched to combat antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in community care settings.

The Integrated BioBank of Luxembourg has joined a project run by the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) to assess the use of diagnostics in helping fight AMR.

The VALUE-Dx project will focus on acute respiratory tract infections acquired in community care settings, a major cause of inappropriate antibiotic use. The project aims to develop more personalised, evidence-based antibiotic prescriptions in community care settings, through the use of clinical diagnostic strategies.

The project includes 26 partners from academia, industry and other organisations. IBBL’s role in the project is to support the creation and maintenance of a biobank of clinical samples, pathogens and DNA, isolated from patients in community care settings whom have acquired respiratory tract infections. IBBL will also establish a database and repository of all data collected within VALUE-Dx.

“We are delighted to be part of such an interdisciplinary consortium and innovative study. The high quality of samples and data collected throughout the project will underpin its successful outcome. Through our proven expertise in biospecimen collection, processing and storage, we will support our partners in achieving this crucial task”, comments Dr Fay Betsou, chief scientific officer at IBBL.