Two projects at Umeå University receive funding in international collaborations with the aim to stop antimicrobial resistant bacteria

Details

MIMS and UCMR Researchers are funded by the Swedish Research Council for their participation in International research collaborations in two research consortia funded within the European Joint Programming Initiative on Antimicrobial Resistance (JPIAMR).

[2018-10-30] MIMS Group Leader and UCMR Researcher Vasili Hauryliuk, Department of Molecular Biology, is part of the project “Development of novel ribosome-targeting antibiotics” with collaborators in Germany, France, Czech Republic and Italy. Under the lead of Daniel Wilson at the University of Hamburg, the collaborating laboratories will focus on discovering novel antibiotics which are targeted towards the ribosome, the cellular protein fabric, which is one of the major target of existing antibiotics.

Three work packages will develop different types of novel antibiotics with improved activity and selectivity. All of them will have different chemical scaffolds that target novel sites on the ribosome and different steps of the translation cycle, the synthesis of bacterial proteins.

The multidisciplinary consortium will have focus on the development of novel antibiotics against Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Priority 1 pathogens. The latter are bacteria which have become resistant to a large number of antibiotics and the best available antibiotics for treating multi-drug resistant bacteria.

The second UCMR Researcher who will be funded by JPIAMR over the coming three years, is Fredrik Almqvist, Department of Chemistry, who is part of a research consortium which will develop new tolerans inhibitors (MTI:s) against MDR/XDR tuberculosis. In total both researchers will receive SEK 3,1 million each.

More information:

Website of The European Joint Programming Initiative on Antimicrobial Resistance (JPIAMR): https://www.jpiamr.eu/

Website of Vasili Hauryliuk: http://www.mims.umu.se/groups/vasili-hauryliuk.html

Website of Fredrik Almqvist: http://www.chemistry.umu.se/english/research/group-leaders/fredrik-almqvist/?languageId=1http://www.chemistry.umu.se/english/research/group-leaders/fredrik-almqvist/?languageId=1

Publication of the decision on the website of the Swedish Research Council: https://www.vr.se/utlysningar-och-beslut/beslut-om-bidrag/beslut/2018-09-06-projektbidrag-for-internationella-samarbeten-inom-antimikrobiell-resistens-jpiamr.html

(Eva-Maria Diehl)