October
20,
2023
(Drug DISCOVERY Specific Seminar)
Bacterial infections are slowly becoming a worldwide health crisis. In fact, the Infectious Diseases Society of America has listed bacterial infections as “1 of the 3 greatest threats to human health. A report from the United Nations states that, if actions are not taken, over 10 million annual deaths are expected by the year 2050 because of bacterial infections. Our research group seeks to develop new treatments against pathogenic infections by developing small heterocycles and nanoparticles.
In this lecture, I will present two projects. The first one will discuss the preparation of dihydrothiazepines as regulators of cylindrical proteases, a degradation machinery that is essential for bacterial survival. I will discuss their activity against Chlamydia Trachomatis (the most prevalent sexually transmitted bacterial disease in the world) and S. aureus. I will present some insights into the mechanism of action, the cell toxicity, and the stability of the compounds. The second project explores the use of self-assembling cationic peptide amphiphiles as antibacterials. I will present the synthesis of the peptide molecules, their characterization, and their biological evaluation. I will also discuss the key features that confer activity to these amphiphilic peptides. In addition, I will present experimental data to understand their mechanism of action and their in vitro and in vivo activity. Finally, I will discuss how both fields, medicinal chemistry and nanotechnology, can be combined to develop new antibacterial therapies.
Hosted by Cody Wenthur
