Resistant bacteria meet their match with custom antibiotics

As recently as 100 years ago every minor injury or routine surgery came with significant risk of infection or even death. The discovery of antibiotics changed that, and they are now essential components of modern medicine. But many bacteria are becoming resistant to these drugs, and we aren’t discovering enough new ones to keep up. My laboratory is building new molecules from simple chemical building blocks, much like Legos, to revitalize antibiotics that haven’t yet reached their full potential. We recently used this approach to improve antibiotics known as streptogramins, which some bacteria are able to deactivate. We built new streptogramins that have a molecular bump that prevents deactivation, overcoming resistance. Working with the Fraser Lab, we are visualizing how these new streptogramins work and are now applying insights from this research to improve other antibiotics. It’s our hope that these efforts will keep medicine one or two steps ahead of deadly, resistant bacteria for decades to come.