Parts of this article (those related to all of it, lede especially) need to be updated. The reason given is: Is it a one-time thing? Is it ongoing? Has it already been won?. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.(July 2022)
The Longitude Prize is an inducement prize contest offered by Challenge Works, a social enterprise which was historically part of Nesta, a British lottery funded charity, in the spirit of the 18th-century Longitude rewards.[1] It runs a £10 million prize fund, offering an £8 million payout to the team of researchers that develops an affordable, accurate, and fast point of care test for bacterial infection that is easy to use anywhere in the world. Such a test will allow the conservation of antibiotics for future generations and help solve the global problem of antimicrobial resistance.[2][3]
A committee chaired by Lord Martin Rees,[7] the Astronomer Royal, chose the six challenges that were to be put to a public vote,[5] and subsequently decided the format of the prize and the specific challenges that must be met to win.[5] The other committee members are:[8]
Gisela Abbam, Chair, British Science Association
Professor Rifat Atun, Professor of Global Health Systems, Harvard School of Public Health
Dr Tim Jinks, Head of Drug-Resistant Infections Priority Programme, Wellcome Trust
Fiona Carragher, Director of Research & Influencing, Alzheimer's Society
Dame Angela McLean, Government Chief Scientific Adviser
Dr Stella Peace, Executive Director Healthy Living and Agriculture at Innovate UK
AMR Prize Advisory Panel
The members of the AMR Prize Advisory Panel are:[9]
Professor Till Bachmann, Professor of Molecular Diagnostics and Infection, University of Edinburgh
Doris-Ann Williams, MBE, Chief Executive, BIVDA
Professor Chris Butler (Chair), Professor of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford
Dr. Paul Chapman, Partner, Marks & Clerk LLP
Dr. Abdul Ghafur, Coordinator, "Chennai Declaration"
Dr. Patrick SM Dunlop, Lecturer, Ulster University
Martin Kiernan, Research Fellow at the Richard Wells Research Centre
Professor Rosanna Peeling, Professor and Chair of Diagnostics Research, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Professor Lucy Yardley, Director CAHP, University of Southampton
Professor Matthew Thompson, Professor of Family Medicine, Vice Chair for Research, University of Washington
Professor Helen Lambert, Professor of Medical Anthropology, University of Bristol
Betsy Wonderly Trainor, Diagnostics Alliance Director, CARB-X team
Dr. Direk Limmathurotsakul, Head of Microbiology, Mahidol-Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit
Dr. Tom Boyles, Infectious Diseases Clinician
Hassan Sefrioui, Director and Member of the Executive Board at Moroccan Foundation for Advanced Science, Innovation and Research
Dr. Jane Cunningham, Consultant in Infectious Diseases and Microbiology, Diagnostics Advisor, Médecins Sans Frontières
Dr. Penny Wilson, Deputy Director, Innovative Devices MHRA
Public vote
The choice of challenges for the Prize was presented on an episode of the BBC science programme Horizon,[5] with a poll opened to the public afterwards. The options were:[5]
Flight - How can we fly without damaging the environment? Design and build an aeroplane that is as close to zero carbon as possible and capable of flying from London to Edinburgh.
Food - How can we ensure everyone has nutritious sustainable food? The next big food innovation.
Antibiotics - How can we prevent the rise of resistance to antibiotics? Create a cost-effective, accurate, easy to use test for bacterial infections.
Paralysis - How can we restore movement to those with paralysis? Give paralysed people the freedom of movement most of us enjoy.
Water - How can we ensure everyone has access to safe and clean water? Create a cheap, environmentally sustainable desalination technology.
Dementia - How can we help people with dementia live independently for longer? Develop intelligent, affordable technologies to help independence.
The winner, antibiotics, was announced on The One Show on BBC 1 on 25 June.[5] The committee issued a draft of the criteria with a two-week opportunity for open review, which finished 10 August 2014.[10]
The vote was urged and welcomed by the Biochemical Society[11] and Jamie Reed, the Shadow Minister for Health at the time and chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Antibiotics (APPG-A), who said "The scale of the challenge that antimicrobial resistance presents is beyond any doubt and new innovative thinking is essential."[12]
Seed funding
Since the announcement of the Longitude Prize, the foundation has selected thirteen organizations for seed funding between £10,000 and £25,000 to go toward their research.[13] Called Discovery Awards, there have been three rounds of these grants.[14]
Second Prize Announced
The Longitude Prize on Dementia was announced in 2022, with the Discovery Awards being made between June 2023 and May 2024.[15]
^Ball, Catherine J. (30 May 2014). "Longitude Prize 2014". Retrieved 16 August 2014. This is an issue which must be urgently addressed...what is really scary is that the threat of AMR (Antimicrobial resistance) is insidiously building; unless we act now it will creep up on the world and influence practically every area of modern medicine...To me, antibiotic resistance is the obvious choice for the Longitude Prize; indeed, without antibiotics many of the discoveries in the other challenge areas could be rendered useless.
