An Antibacterial Drug Discovery Accelerator

Drug resistant bacterial infections are a major problem across the world; in some cases there are no drugs available to treat these infections. If we do not work out ways to tackle these drug resistant bacteria, the situation will become much worse, leading to many millions of people dying of diseases that are treatable today. In addition, common procedures such as hip-replacements and Caesaren sections will become very risky procedures, due to the risk of untreatable infections. There is a critical need for new drugs to tackle these drug-resistant bacterial infections. This application is for funding to refurbish some laboratory space to create an Antibacterial Drug Discovery Accelerator within our Drug Discovery Unit at the University of Dundee. While many millions are spent every year on excellent discovery science by expert microbiologists in our leading UK universities, almost none of this currently leads to new therapeutics. The University of Dundee team will collaborate with these leading research microbiologists to help them convert their innovative discoveries into prototype medicines suitable for development by the pharmaceutical industry to reach patients.