(Press-News.org) Scientists at Uppsala University have discovered a new class of antibiotics with potent activity against multi-drug resistant bacteria, and have shown that it cures bloodstream infections in mice. The new antibiotic class is described in an article in the scientific journal PNAS.
Antibiotics are the foundation of modern medicine and over the last century have dramatically improved the lives of people around the world. Nowadays we tend to take antibiotics for granted and rely heavily on them to treat or prevent bacterial infections, including for example, to reduce the risk of infections during cancer therapy, during invasive surgery and transplants, and in mothers and preterm babies. Increasingly though, the global rise in antibiotic resistance threatens their effectiveness. In order to ensure access to effective antibiotics in the future, development of novel therapeutics to which there is no existing resistance is essential.
Researchers at Uppsala University have recently published their work in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA describing a new class of antibiotics developed as a part of multi-national consortia. The class of compounds they describe target a protein, LpxH, which is used in a pathway by Gram-negative bacteria to synthesize their outermost layer of protection from the environment, called lipopolysaccharide. Not all bacteria produce this layer, but those that do include the organisms that have been identified by the World Health Organization as being the most critical to develop novel treatments for, including Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae that have already developed resistance to available antibiotics. The researchers were able to show that this new antibiotic class is highly active against multidrug-resistant bacteria and was able to treat bloodstream infections in a mouse model, demonstrating the promise of this class. Importantly, since this compound class is completely new and the protein LpxH has not yet been exploited as a target for antibiotics there is no pre-existing resistance to this class of compounds. This is in contrast to the many ‘me-too’ antibiotics of existing classes currently in clinical development. While the current results are very promising there will be considerable additional work required before compounds of this class will be ready for clinical trials.
The work to discover and develop this new class of antibiotics was supported by the EU project ENABLE which was funded through the Innovative Medicines Initiative’s New Drugs 4 Bad Bugs program (ND4BB). The ENABLE project, led by researchers at Uppsala University and the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline, brought together stakeholders from across Europe representing academia and large and small pharmaceutical companies to pool resources and expertise to advance early-stage antibiotic development. This antibiotic class now continues to be developed in the follow-on project, ENABLE-2, an antibiotic drug discovery platform funded by Swedish Research Council, the National Research Programme on Antibiotic Resistance and Sweden’s innovation agency Vinnova to continue the momentum generated by the original ENABLE project.
About ENABLE
In ENABLE, over 50 European partners from academia and industry, co-led by GlaxoSmithKline and Uppsala University, joined forces in a 7-year project funded by the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) to develop novel antibiotics against key Gram-negative bacteria such as E. coli, K. pneumoniae, P. aeruginosa and A. baumannii.
The research leading to these results has received funding from the Innovative Medicines Initiative Joint Undertaking under grant agreement n°115583, resources of which are composed of financial contribution from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) and EFPIA companies’ in-kind contribution. The ENABLE project is also financially supported by contributions from Academic and SME partners.
For more information about IMI, visit www.imi.europa.eu
About ENABLE-2
ENABLE-2 has built an antibacterial drug discovery platform based on the learnings from the IMI project ENABLE with focus on the early stages of antibiotic discovery and development.
ENABLE-2 is supported by the Swedish Research Council, the National Research
Programme on Antibiotic Resistance and Sweden’s innovation agency Vinnova.
For more information about ENABLE-2, visit www.ilk.uu.se/enable2
END
New antibiotic class effective against multidrug-resistant bacteria
2024-04-01
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
A new family tree revises our understanding of bird evolution
2024-04-01
Birds are the only dinosaur lineage that survived until today. About 66 million years ago at the Cretaceous–Paleogene (K–Pg) boundary, a mass extinction event destroyed all non-avian dinosaurs, providing an opportunity for birds to diversify rapidly and occupy a wide range of ecological niches. Neoaves, a diverse group comprising approximately 95% of all bird species today, emerged from this radiation. From the towering condors of the Andes to the diminutive hummingbirds flitting through tropical forests, Neoaves encompass a stunning ...
Computational tools fuel reconstruction of new and improved bird family tree
2024-04-01
An international team of scientists has built the largest and most detailed bird family tree to date—an intricate chart delineating 93 million years of evolutionary relationships between 363 bird species, representing 92% of all bird families.
The advance was made possible in large part thanks to cutting-edge computational methods developed by engineers at the University of California San Diego, combined with the university’s state-of-the-art supercomputing resources at the San Diego Supercomputer Center. These technologies have enabled researchers to analyze vast amounts of genomic data with high accuracy and speed, ...
New USF study: Research reveals language barriers limit effectiveness of cybersecurity resources
2024-04-01
TAMPA, Fla. (April 1, 2024) – The idea for Fawn Ngo’s latest research came from a television interview.
Ngo, a University of South Florida criminologist, had spoken with a Vietnamese language network in California about her interest in better understanding how people become victims of cybercrime.
Afterward, she began receiving phone calls from viewers recounting their own experiences of victimization.
“Some of the stories were unfortunate and heartbreaking,” said Ngo, an associate professor in the USF College of Behavioral and Community Sciences. “They made me wonder about the availability ...
CU researchers awarded grant to develop genetic risk score for thyroid cancer
2024-04-01
Researchers at the University of Colorado School of Medicine are hopeful new research could prevent up to 130,000 unneeded fine-needle aspiration (FNA) biopsies of thyroid nodules and subsequent surgeries each year in the United States by better understanding the genetic risk associated with thyroid cancer.
Through an R21 grant from the National Institutes of Health, Nikita Pozdeyev, MD, assistant professor of biomedical informatics, Chris Gignoux, PhD, professor of biomedical informatics, and Bryan Haugen, MD, professor of medicine and head of the Division of Endocrinology, Metabolism, and Diabetes, will study new strategies that could pave the way ...
NIST researchers use cellphone compass to measure tiny concentrations of compounds important for human health
2024-04-01
Nearly every modern cellphone has a built-in compass, or magnetometer, that detects the direction of Earth’s magnetic field, providing critical information for navigation. Now a team of researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has developed a technique that uses an ordinary cellphone magnetometer for an entirely different purpose — to measure the concentration of glucose, a marker for diabetes, to high accuracy.
The same technique, which uses the magnetometer in conjunction with magnetic materials designed ...
Frisch to conduct research on healing the traumatized body in second temple Judaism
2024-04-01
Frisch To Conduct Research On Healing The Traumatized Body In Second Temple Judaism
Alexandria ...
Reducing late-night alcohol sales curbed all violent crimes by 23% annually in a Baltimore neighborhood
2024-04-01
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, April 1, 2024
Contact:
Jillian McKoy, jpmckoy@bu.edu
Michael Saunders, msaunder@bu.edu
##
Reducing Late-Night Alcohol Sales Curbed All Violent Crimes by 23% Annually in a Baltimore Neighborhood
A new study found that reducing alcohol hours of sale for bars and taverns in a Baltimore, Md. neighborhood also reduced homicides by 51 percent within the first month and by 40 percent annually, pointing to possible opportunities for other cities to address excessive drinking and crime.
Simply reducing the hours during which alcohol may be purchased can significantly reduce violent crime, ...
Altered brain morphology and functional connectivity in postmenopausal women
2024-04-01
“[...] our findings suggest that diminished brain volume and functional connectivity may be linked to menopause-related symptoms caused by the lower sex hormone levels.”
BUFFALO, NY- April 1, 2024 – A new research paper was published on the cover of Aging (listed by MEDLINE/PubMed as "Aging (Albany NY)" and "Aging-US" by Web of Science) Volume 16, Issue 6, entitled, “Altered brain morphology and functional connectivity in postmenopausal women: automatic segmentation of whole-brain and thalamic subnuclei ...
UIC engineers ‘symphonize’ cleaner ammonia production
2024-04-01
Among the many chemicals we use every day, ammonia is one of the worst for the atmosphere. The nitrogen-based chemical used in fertilizer, dyes, explosives and many other products ranks second only to cement in terms of carbon emissions, due to the high temperatures and energy needed to manufacture it.
But by improving on a well-known electrochemical reaction and orchestrating a “symphony” of lithium, nitrogen and hydrogen atoms, University of Illinois Chicago engineers led by Meenesh Singh have developed a new ammonia production processthat meets several green targets.
The process, called ...
Old crystal, new story for enhancing deep ultraviolet laser performance
2024-04-01
In the realm of science and technology, harnessing coherent light sources in the deep ultraviolet (DUV) region holds immense significance across various applications such as lithography, defect inspection, metrology, and spectroscopy. Traditionally, high-power 193-nanometer (nm) lasers have been pivotal in lithography, forming an integral part of systems used for precise patterning. However, the coherence limitations associated with conventional ArF excimer lasers hinder their effectiveness in applications requiring high-resolution patterns, like interference lithography.
Enter the concept of the "hybrid ArF excimer laser." ...