Grant: Operating Grant

In the past forty years only two new classes of antibiotics have reached the clinic for treatment of bacterial infections. During the same time we have seen an alarming increase in reports of "superbugs" with resistance to existing drugs. Indeed, multidrug resistance in bacteria is due largely to the limited repertoire of drugs that eradicate bacteria and with a narrow range of mechanisms. Recognizing the need for new therapies with novel mechanisms, we seek to better understand the most basic elements of poorly understood but core physiology in bacteria to reveal chinks in the armor of important pathogens. In the work proposed here we hope to break fresh ground in the discovery of new probes of the model microbe Escherichia coli with the hope that this work will lead to novel leads for new antibiotics.