Antibiotic Bioprospecting
Due to the overuse and misapplication of antibiotics, pathogenic bacteria are becoming resistant to multiple types of antibiotics. Most notable is MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), which is responsible for over 100000 deaths per year and is very difficult to treat.
Antibiotic bioprospecting is the search for novel compounds that can aid in the fight against bacteria.
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Discovering and synthesizing new antibiotics allows us to save more lives by fighting against infections that would otherwise be fatal.
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There are two approaches to discovering novel antibiotics, however they both share the similarity of having to undergo a chemical modification step that makes them patentable.
New antibiotics are found by collecting soil or other types of samples from unique environments then culturing the microbes present in the sample or extracting the genetic material from it.
The compounds produced by culturable microbes are extracted and screened for antimicrobial activity by culture based assays and high performance liquid chromatography.
Genetic material extracted is sequenced and compared to a reference database. Genes that are similar to antibiotic genes in reference databases are then put into organisms and screened for antibiotic properties.
The final step adds a chemical group to the newly discovered antibiotic so that it abides by patent laws.
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We have worked on both methods for the discovery of novel antibiotics from soil and chemical modification to the compound.