Grant: Project Grant

With the emergence of new forms of drug-resistant bacteria, it becomes essential that new classes of antibiotics be discovered and developed. The proposed project brings together a team of four researchers interested in the development of a new class of antibiotics that we identified targeting a highly conserved self-compartmentalizing serine protease termed ClpP using a novel mode of action. Recently, we found that the infectivity of the pathogenic bacteria Neisseria meningitidis is abolished if the clpP gene is disrupted and that Neisseria meningitidis and Neisseria gonorrhoeae are very sensitive to the new class of compounds. Hence, we are interested in determining the mechanism of action of these compounds in Neisseria. We are also interested investigating the cellular function of ClpP in these bacteria under normal growth as well as during infection. These studies will provide important insights into the development of new strategies to combat bacterial infections.