Exploiting Microbial Glycomimetics to Fight Antimicrobial Resistance

2026-07-22

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) represents a significant health and economic challenge worldwide. Due to the fact that bacterial infections affect most people at some point in their lives, methods for specific recognition and targeting of bacteria are of key importance in developing approaches to counter the growth of AMR, where the discovery of novel antibiotics represents a global challenge in urinary tract infections (UTI). Progress in bioorganic synthesis has provided access to knowledge of the interactions between receptors (lectins) and specific carbohydrate on the outer membrane of bacteria. Cell surface carboAntimicrobial resistance (AMR) represents a significant health and economic challenge worldwide, where the discovery of novel antibiotics represents a global challenge in urinary tract infections (UTI). Progress in bioorganic synthesis has provided access to knowledge of the interactions between receptors (lectins) and specific carbohydrate on the outer membrane of bacteria. It is commonly accepted that this process requires an exquisite carbohydrate specificity of bacterial surface lectins and offer an opportunity to develop very selective probes that could target specific bacteria by the development of glycan mimics as potential drug candidates. Interestingly, some bacterial strains of E. coli are specific for galabiose. In order to design a drug candidate, it will be synthesized various glycomimetics with a common core of galabiose, which will be conjugated with a fluorescence probe to evaluate their binding affinity. Our hypothesis in this project resolves around the generation of a new class of antibiotics through the combination of known antibiotic drugs with the lead glycomimetics and allowing the drug delivery to the desired location. This project aims to test both aspects of the discovery of new antibiotics employing bioorganic approach based on the design, synthesis, diagnostic assays and drug delivery analysis of appropriate molecular models.

United Kingdom (UK)

2026-01-01