The multifaceted mechanisms of antibiotics on bacterial cells

Speaker: Dr Michaela Wenzel, Amsterdam University

Host: Professor Stuart Neil

Antimicrobial resistance has developed into a major global health crisis and as established antibiotics fail, we need a paradigm change in what makes a good antibiotic target. Predominantly, antibiotic mechanisms are studied in vitro with a strong focus on single targets. Using a variety of microscopic and spectroscopic tools, we could recently demonstrate that established antibiotics, such as daptomycin and tetracycline, have much more diverse and complex mechanisms than previously thought and possess more than one in vivo target. This knowledge has large implications for how novel drugs are designed.