Swab and Send
Help us find the next antibiotic
Antibiotic resistance is rising, and we need new antibiotics to protect health worldwide. By supporting Swab and Send, you help our researchers test bacteria and fungi from everyday places for compounds that could become future treatments.
We’re always looking to the future. Our ambition is to be recognised as a global organisation championing world-class research while providing top-level education. We will continue to build equitable and sustainable partnerships to strengthen our impact.
Why this matters
Antibiotics help us treat bacterial infections in people and animals. They also play an important role in food production.
But bacteria evolve quickly. As resistance grows, some antibiotics stop working. This is antimicrobial resistance (AMR), and it is a major global threat.
A major global study estimated that in 2019, bacterial AMR was linked to 4.95 million deaths, including 1.27 million deaths directly caused by AMR.
Global burden of bacterial antimicrobial resistance
How Swab and Send works
We already test tens of thousands of microbes. With your support, we can go further.
1. You donate to support our work.
2. If you donate £30 or more, we send you a swab pack.
3. You collect swabs from everyday places, for example, the back of a fridge, a phone, or a light switch and send them back to us.
4. We analyse your swabs in the lab to look for microbes that could produce new antibiotics.
“When your swab arrives, we grow the bacteria and fungi, then test them against antibiotic-resistant microbes. If anything shows promise, we save it for further research.”
Professor Adam Roberts