Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is now considered a critical global healthcare challenge and urgently requires new therapeutic strategies to overcome this issue. Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) and mimics thereof have been shown to effectively synergise and revive the 'lost' activity of antibiotics against multidrug resistant bacteria. This approach is promising in combating AMR and we aim to build upon our initial work and develop further. The project will look at testing more combinations and against wider panel of bacteria including priority pathogens such as Klebsiella pneumoniae and Acinetobacter baumannii.
School
Chemical Engineering
Research Area
Antimicrobial resistance | Infectious diseases | Medicinal chemistry
Suitable for recognition of Work Integrated Learning (industrial training)?
No
- Research environment
- Expected outcomes
- Supervisory team
- Reference material/links
Very biofocussed project and hence the scholar will be mainly working in a PC2 microbiology lab to perform antimicrobial assays. Scholar needs to have good attention to detail.
- Tested various combinations of AMPs and antibiotics against different bacteria strains.
- The results are expected to lead to high impact publication and also further in vivo testing in animal models with collaborators, which would form the basis of preclinical work for future translation.
- The scholar will learn/enhance technical skills at working in a biolab and also develop deep knowledge in the AMR field.
The scholar will be working closely with Dr Edgar Wong and other team members in the group. In addition, there will be opportunities to work closely with clinicians depending on the progress of the project.
- https://www.edgarwonglab.com/
- https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acsinfecdis.2c00087
- https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acs.biomac.4c01137
- General reading on antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) and combination therapy