The World Health Organisation (WHO) in 2019 declared antimicrobial resistance (AMR) to be one of the top ten global public health threats facing humanity. Low profit margins and a high risk of cross-resistance led to big pharma’s loss of interest in antibiotic research and development, contributing to the increasing threat.
Novel treatments that offer new modes of action combined with a low risk of resistance are urgently needed, but screening compound libraries of novel antimicrobials for new modes of action is still time-consuming and costly. BioSAXS is emerging as a new method to test up to thousands of compounds to classify them based on ultra-structural changes that correlate to their modes of action.
This webcast will discuss this method using the example of antimicrobial peptides (AMPs). AMPs are an extremely diverse group of compounds, found in all kingdoms of life, that show various biological functionalities, such as antibacterial, antifungal, antiviral, antiparasitic, anticancer, and immunomodulatory. What makes them very interesting for antimicrobial drug development is the fact that they also have numerous modes of action and a lower risk of inducing resistance compared to current antibiotics.
You will learn:
• What antimicrobial peptides are
• How to use spot synthesis on cellulose to synthesize and screen peptides
• How to use BioSAXS to classify antimicrobials according to their mode of action
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Speakers
Kai Hilpert, Associate Professor, St George’s, University of London and Founder and Director, TiKa Diagnostics
Kai Hilpert, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor (Reader) of Infection and Immunity at St. George’s, University of London. He has 20 years of experience in the synthesis and optimization of short antimicrobial peptides and has combined his expertise with bioinformatics to enhance understanding of sequence requirements and optimize AMP prediction. His publications were more than 10,000 times cited. He is a co-founder of the International Meeting on Antimicrobial Peptides (IMAP) and one of the founders and directors of a university spin-off company called TiKa Diagnostics.
Moderator
Nikki Forrester, Freelance Science Writer and Editor
Nikki Forrester is a science journalist who covers biology, natural history, climate, and the culture of academic research. She earned a Ph.D. in ecology and evolutionary biology in 2019.
