In drug research, structures to which drugs are directed or bind to are called targets.
Detailed description
Targets are often molecules that are essential for the development or persistence of a disease. In the development of a new drug, a potential target is searched first. Drugs should bind to that target and influence it, for example by switching it on or off.
Gram-negative bacteria are naturally insensitive to many antibiotics due to their additional outer membrane. In addition, the bacteria have acquired resistance to clinically used antibiotics in recent decades, resulting in multidrug-resistant bacteria. Novel classes of antibiotics are needed to ...
Antibacterial drugs are important for treating infections. However, increasing bacterial resistance to current drugs—making them ineffective or only partially effective—means that new drugs are
In the current WHO list of bacterial priority pathogens (WHO BPPL 2024), the World Health Organisation classifies carbapenem-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacteria as a high-priority pathogen, which means there is an urgent need for new anti-infectives to combat this problematic bacterium. To ...
The PAACT project (short for: Precision Access to Antibiotic Compounds and Targets) serves as a hub within the DZIF for the discovery and characterisation of new antibacterial agents and lead structures. In the context of the project, the development pipeline of antibiotic candidates is continuously ...
Professors Ivo Boneca (Institut Pasteur, Paris), Mark Brönstrup (Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research, Braunschweig, and German Center for Infection Research), and Christophe Zimmer (University of
Colistin is a last-resort antibiotic that is usually only used for severe infections with resistant bacteria. This is due to its severe kidney-damaging side effects, which occur in around 30 percent
