Antimicrobial Discovery and Development

Antimicrobial Discovery and Development

Project 19 May 2021
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New antibiotics are urgently needed and we have multiple projects involved in this activity.

Discovery is centred around the Swab and Send antibiotic discovery project which, over the last 5 years, has yielded 100s of hits against target pathogens (both bacterial and fungal).

We are also investigating numerous antimicrobial molecules in collaboration with colleagues in The Centre for Snakebite Research & Interventions and the Centre for Drugs and Diagnostics and Chemists at the University of Liverpool and local SMEs by determining their efficacy against a wide range of clinical bacterial isolates growing both planktonically and as a biofilm. We are also determining their resistance emergence potential which is linked to genomic studies of resistant strains and functional metagenomics in order to determine mechanisms of action and target sites of novel compounds.

Our drug discovery and development activity is currently funded by UKRI, ERDF, ANTRUK and the Wellcome Trust

Recent Articles

Wu Pet al. Synthesis and biological evaluation of pentacyclic triterpenoid derivatives as potential novel antibacterial agents. Bioorganic Chemistry. 2021 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bioorg.2021.104692

Roberts AP. Swab and Send: a citizen science, antibiotic discovery project. Future Science OA. 2020. https://doi.org/10.2144/fsoa-2020-0053

Yu Pet al. A novel fluorescent probe for the detection of AmpC beta-lactamase and the application in screening beta-lactamase inhibitors. Spectrochimica acta. Part A, Molecular and biomolecular spectroscopy. 2020  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.saa.2020.118257

Hong WDet al. AWZ1066S, a highly specific anti-Wolbachia drug candidate for a short-course treatment of filariasis. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 2019 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1816585116