As Drug Resistance Rises, GramEye and GSK Advance New AI-Led Infectious Disease Research

GSK and the Fleming Initiative (Imperial College) have launched a £45 million partnership to fund six major research programmes leveraging advanced AI to combat antimicrobial resistance (AMR), particularly targeting Gram-negative bacteria, MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), and fungal pathogens2 3 4 5 7.

The initiative addresses the urgent global health threat posed by drug-resistant infections, as highlighted by recent data showing rising resistance rates in key bacteria such as E. coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae2 7 13.

Key research themes include:
AI-driven discovery of new antibiotics for Gram-negative bacteria, novel drugs against fungal infections, modeling the human immune response to Staphylococcus aureus to support vaccine development, new AI models for pathogen surveillance and prediction, optimized antibiotic prescribing practices, and leveraging global research data for policy development1 2 3 5.

New AI and machine learning models will be trained on large, novel molecular datasets generated through automation at the Imperial Drug Discovery Hub, focusing especially on the complex defenses of Gram-negative bacteria3 7 13.

One research team will simulate and study human immune responses to Staphylococcus aureus infections to address the failure of previous vaccine candidates and enable more informed future vaccine design1 2 3 5.

The six research programs are fully funded for three years and are expected to begin by early 2026, supporting approximately 50 dedicated scientific roles2 5.

In parallel, GramEye, a separate company, announced JPY 570 million (~$3.65 million) in Series B funding to expand its infectious disease platform, which also applies AI to accelerate the diagnosis and management of infectious diseases9.

The combined efforts aim to harness the power of AI, automation, and big data to accelerate the discovery of new solutions for drug-resistant infections, with an emphasis on making datasets and models available to the wider scientific community for continued innovation2 3 7.