The fight against antibiotic resistance will be the focus of a £10m fund, it has been announced. Both amateur and professional scientists will be encouraged to try to come up with the solution to the problem of decreasing effectiveness of the drugs as part of this year's Longitude Prize.

The challenge, one of six proposed, was set by public vote on Wednesday. Scientists are now asked to come up with 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".

Setting out the problem, the organisers said: "The development of antibiotics has added an average of 20 years to our life. Yet the rise of antimicrobial resistance is threatening to make them ineffective. This poses a significant future risk as common infections become untreatable."

Dr Jeremy Farrar, director of medical research charity the Wellcome Trust, declared himself "delighted" with the result of the public vote, which was announced on the BBC's The One Show.

He said: "Antibiotics, and indeed the multitude of drugs used daily to treat infection, are the bedrock on which much of modern medicine is built.

"Yet rapidly emerging drug resistance threatens the medical successes – from transplant surgery to cancer treatment – we currently take for granted. It is crucial we focus our collective global research efforts on this, one of the greatest public health threats of our time," he added.

Science minister David Willetts said that the shortlist "reminds us how much we rely on science and technology to make our lives better".

The Longitude Prize was set up 300 years ago to find the solution to what was then a major technical problem: how to navigate the seas safely.

"But in today's age of X Factor and Strictly we are asking the public to vote on which great problem they want scientists to conquer," wrote Willetts.

"There is nothing to stop a total outsider, with passion and ingenuity but no lab coat, from winning the prize itself.

"The sea clock that netted the original Longitude Prize in 1714 was invented by John Harrison, a Yorkshire carpenter who built and repaired clocks in his spare time. Legend has it that he was given a watch at the age of six when he was in bed with smallpox, and spent hours taking it to pieces to understand what made it tick," he added.

Scientists also placed the issues of paralysis, environmentally friendly flight, food and water supply and dementia on the shortlist.