A collaborative approach towards antimicrobial drug discovery

The current collaboration involves researchers from Uppsala University (UU), Sweden (Anders Karlén, Anja Sandström, Lindon Moodie, Oscar Verho) and Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRRJ), Brazil (Cedric Graebin). During 2022, each Swedish participant will visit the UFRRJ for 3 months, and CSG will stay at UU for one year.

Our collaboration focuses on identifying hit antimicrobial compounds for further development towards the clinic.

Whilst UU and UFRRJ have established drug discovery anti-bacterial and anti-malarial programs, respectively, significant opportunity exists for sharing compound libraries and screening resources.Access to diverse, complex chemical libraries is also important for antimicrobial drug discovery.

Our project also focuses on sharing both practical and strategic expertise in two areas of organic chemistry: multicomponent reactions and diversity oriented synthesis.

Implementing these techniques will significantly accelerate library synthesis, and therefore hit discovery, at both institutes.

The research stays by CSG, AS, LM and OV will facilitate sharing of these techniques between institutes, and AK will introduce computational techniques to aid drug discovery efforts. Each researcher also brings their own unique knowledge on how to use medicinal chemistry to target pathogens.

Furthermore, educational programs will be initiated at both sites with the aims of encouraging young scientists to enter the field.