UK researchers granted funds to develope new antibiotics

Newcastle University Tuesday announced that its researchers have been awarded approximately 1 million pounds (1.54 million U.S. dollars) of public fund to investigate the mechanism of antibiotic resistance so as to find out a solution to the global health issue.

The funding is part of a multi-million pound flagship project, backed by the UK government, looking at antibiotic resistance, also known as superbugs, and the development of new antibiotics, according to the university.

Antibiotic resistance is a significant problem for healthcare and agriculture. Antibiotics have been used to treat bacterial infections in humans and animals for 70 years, but these medicines are becoming less effective. Worryingly no new classes of antibiotics have been discovered for 25 years and some strains of bacteria are now not killed by the drugs designed to destroy them.

The Newcastle team will investigate a vital link in the chain of antibiotic resistance - the bacterial cell wall, the main component of which is called peptidoglycan, the key target of penicillin and other similar antibiotics, according to researchers.

Despite its important role, little is known about how peptidoglycan is made and how antibiotics interfere with it at the biochemical, structural and cellular levels. Without this knowledge, researchers said they are unlikely to understand how to develop new, effective antibiotics in the future.

The threat posed by antibiotic resistance is a real public health challenge, and "we hope that by ensuring we develop links between academia and the pharmaceutical industry our research can make a real difference in the quest for new antibiotics," said professor Rick Lewis from Newcastle University, who participates in the pioneering five-year project. Endit