How research fields are joining forces to protect healthcare systems

Suitable for 14-19-year olds (secondary and high schools, and college), this article and accompanying activity sheet can be used in the classroom, STEM clubs and at home.

This resource links to KS4 and KS5 biology and social sciences.

It can also be used as a careers resource and links to Gatsby Benchmarks:
Gatsby Benchmark 2: Learning from career and labour market information
Gatsby Benchmark 4: Linking curriculum learning to careers

• This teaching resource explains the work of scientists Professor Alison Holmes, Dr Elita Jauneikaite, Dr Esmita Charani, Dr Tim Rawson and Dr Nina Zhu at Imperial College London, and Dr Matt Ellington at the UK Health Security Agency. They are combatting antimicrobial resistance and healthcare associated infections by combining their diverse range of expertise and addressing the issues from multiple directions.

• This resource also contains interviews with the team. If your students have questions for them, they can send them to the team online. All they need to do is to go to the article online (see the Futurum link below), scroll down to the end and type in the question(s). Alison, Matt, Elita, Esmita, Tim and Nina will reply!

• The activity sheet provides ‘talking points’ (based on Bloom’s Taxonomy) to prompt students to reflect on the team’s research and challenges them to consider the range of careers that could lead them to solve the challenge of antimicrobial resistance.

This resource was first published on Futurum Careers, a free online resource and magazine aimed at encouraging 14-19-year-olds worldwide to pursue careers in science, tech, engineering, maths, medicine (STEM) and social sciences, humanities and the arts for people and the economy (SHAPE).

If you like these free resources – or have suggestions for improvements –, please let us know and leave us some feedback. Thank you!