A high-throughput discovery-manufacturing platform for new pipelines of antimicrobial biologics.

The advance of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is relentless. A succession of WHO reports on AMR reveal that the problem is no longer a future or developing threat, but that it is already challenging our ability to treat common infections. To reverse this alarming trend, we need not just powerful compounds, but also powerful discovery and development paradigms. Novel antibiotics must have potent activity, but they must also serve as scaffolds for structural diversification for the sustainability of long-term functional efficacy. As with first generation antibiotics like penicillin, our goal should not just be to discover individual antibiotics but rather provide new antibiotic pipelines for a sustainable defence against AMR. This project will provide a discovery-manufacturing platform using state of the art equipment to accelerate the much-needed introduction of an exciting new class of potent antibiotics based on bacteriocins that rapidly kill bacteria, including drug-resistant Gram-negative pathogens and MRSA. The platform will deploy scalable systems for peptide antibiotic production and diversify their functional potential through rational design and discovery from novel samples, adapting their medicinal properties; thus providing a new pipeline of effective antibiotics.