The topic for the Longitude Prize is the battle against the rise of antibiotic resistance.
The project that can best overcome this problem will be awarded £10 million funding.
The science prize aimed at promoting an innovation that could “solve one of the greatest issues of our time” and it was members of the public who selected antibiotic resistance from a shortlist of six challenges faced today.
Antibiotics use has added an average of 20 years to our life expectancy, but the rise of antimicrobial resistance is threatening to make them ineffective.
This means that many common infections could not be treated and surgical procedures would be more dangerous.
The Government's Chief Medical Officer Professor Dame Sally Davies hs deemed it a "ticking time-bomb".
The challenge will be to create a cost-effective, accurate, rapid, and easy-to-use test for bacterial infections that will allow health professionals worldwide to administer the right antibiotics at the right time.
The time scale for work in this area is five years.
More details will be announced in September, including “the prize rules and set goals that incentivise as many people as possible to participate.”
