Leveraging Iron Metabolism for Next-Generation Anti-TB Antibiotics

Speaker: My 13+ years’ research experience to date is a hybrid of industry and academia, with my focus on discovery science for translational impact in infectious diseases, drug discovery and antimicrobial resistance. My research focuses on chronic bacterial, treatment recalcitrant infections and includes epidemiology, AMR mechanism elucidation and development of novel antimicrobial treatments and strategies in Mycobacteria. Working with colleagues in the Infection Biology and Therapeutics group at LSTM, I investigate how virulence and AMR leads to poor patient outcomes and how we can develop novel treatment strategies and interventions. At CL2 and CL3, I use a diverse range of techniques and tools including whole genome sequencing, RNAseq, macrophage infection models, pathogen host interaction assays, in vitro biofilm models and Galleria melonella virulence assays.

Topic: New efficacious antibiotics are urgently needed for TB to both shorten treatment times and address the growing threat of multidrug resistant TB. Working with Prof Giancarlo Biagini at LSTM and Prof Paul O’Neill and Dr Dave Hong and their PhD student Sophie Pate at the Chemistry Department of University of Liverpool, we have developed novel anti-TB molecules that target M. tuberculosis. We have demonstrated that one lead molecule targets iron metabolism in M. tuberculosis to inhibit growth with favourable pharmacokinetic properties and low toxicity. This talk will focus on the development pathway of this molecule that targets a currently unexploited metabolic process in M. tuberculosis. We aim to progress this through to animal models of TB and develop this molecule as a new addition to the therapeutic arsenal used to treat the leading cause of death globally due to a single infectious agent, M. tuberculosis.