Grant: Canada-UK Partnership on Antibiotic Resistance - LOI

Ever since its discovery and use in the early 1940's, penicillins and other antibiotics that target peptidolgyan in bacterial cell wall biosynthesis have been cornerstones in our fight against infection. Peptidoglycan biosynthesis is thus a well validated drug discovery pathway for gram positive and gram negative bacteria and it still offers real promise in the development of new classes of inhibitors that could also show activity against multi-drug resistant organisms. As leading researchers in peptidoglycan metabolism in Canada and the UK with complementary facilities and expertise, Team CanUK proposes to consolidate established collaborations and further the development of a research network for the discovery of novel antibacterial targets and leads in peptidoglycan metabolism. Using PG-SYNTH at the University of Warwick and the Hight Throughput Screening Facility at McMaster University as anchors for this transatlantic team, researchers will develop new assays for the study of peptidoglycan metabolism with the aim to identify novel targets for the development of new classes of antibiotics.