Facilitate the transport of antibiotics

Javier Montenegro

Centro Singular de Investigación en Química Biológica y Materiales Moleculares (CiQUS) de la Universidade de Santiago (USC), Spain

Bacterial resistance is becoming one of the biggest challenges for the future of human health. Due to the rise of multi-resistant microorganisms coupled with the lack of new antibiotics, it is estimated that by 2050, ten million people worldwide could die each year after contracting infections from resistant bacteria.

One of the main hurdles in developing new antibiotics is that many of the available molecules, although promising in their bactericidal capacity, are not able to cross the bacterial membrane. And while there are some current strategies to facilitate their passage through the bacterial membrane, they have significant limitations in terms of efficacy and stability.

In this project, the researchers will use a new approach to tackle this challenge: they will rely on a recently discovered property of boron that allows the transport of hydrophilic molecules across cell membranes. The knowledge generated by the project will pave the way for the potential use of boron to transport molecules with antibiotic properties through the bacterial membrane.

• Mariana Pinho, ITQB, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal

ChaoTROPIC Antimicrobial Hybrids for Bacterial Penetration

€984,050.00