Experimental bacteriology
Introduction
The vision for this grouping is to develop world-leading research in the field of antibiotics. This will be accomplished by creating a multidisciplinary platform where all aspects of antibiotics design and testing can be handled, from structural and chemical biology to in vivo models and first in man studies.
Antibiotics research is at a crossroads. After 60 years of tremendously successful research which has resulted in an arsenal of very effective antibiotic compounds, resistance to these compounds is rising. We are now at a threshold of a very dangerous public health crisis, notably in hospitals where untreatable nosocomial infections are on the ascent.Yet, finding novel antibiotics has proved difficult and many major pharmaceutical companies have withdrawn from the field.
This state of affairs combined with major breakthroughs in understanding the mechanisms of bacterial infections has led to questioning the traditional model of the past. Indeed, all antibiotics kill the pathogens and as a result, as soon as an antibiotic is on the market, resistance appears.
Moreover, all antibiotics wipe out the commensal bacterial population that inhabits humans, and side effects of this are only recently being recognised. Indeed, the bacterial microbiota represents 90% of the human cell population (in number) and has now been demonstrated to be responsible for a number of metabolic and immune diseases such as obesity and asthma. It is now clear that antibiotics, by killing both the good (commensal microbiota) and the bad (pathogens) have unintended consequences.
It is therefore time to move to a different approach in antibiotic design: the targeting of virulence factors. Disarming the bacterial pathogen instead of killing it is a viable alternative that needs developing urgently. It has the advantage of i) lowering considerably the selective pressure for resistance and ii) preserving the microbiota intact. Elimination of the disarmed pathogen is then completed by the immune system.
This is a novel approach that breaks from the traditional bacterial killing approach. We propose here to develop an interdisciplinary grouping combining UCL’s expertise in translational research with the LSHTM and Birkbeck strengths in basic bacteriology to develop a novel pipeline of anti-virulence antibiotics.
Experimental bacteriology case studies
Fighting infection early
The attachment of bacteria to host tissues marks a critical early step...