BBSRC Portfolio Analyser

Award details

Efficient production of first in class antimicrobial therapeutics from an integrated synthetic biology approach

ReferenceBB/M01830X/1
Principal Investigator / Supervisor Professor Mathew Upton
Co-Investigators /
Co-Supervisors
Institution University of Plymouth
DepartmentSch of Biomedical and Healthcare Sci
Funding typeResearch
Value (£) 218,143
StatusCompleted
TypeResearch Grant
Start date 01/05/2015
End date 30/04/2017
Duration24 months

Abstract

Antibiotic resistant bacteria kill over 25,000 people a year in Europe and threaten a return to a time when minor infections can be fatal and routine surgery poses high risks. With development pipelines empty, there is a critical need for novel therapies to kill antibiotic resistant bacteria and serve as scaffolds for derivatisation, diversification and enhancement of efficacy, which proved successful with drugs like penicillin. Epidermicins are an exciting new class of antimicrobial biologics (ABs) that rapidly kill bacteria, with nanomolar level potency and have great potential to prevent or treat bacterial infections including those caused by resistant bacteria. In recent in vivo trials, a single dose of epidermicin was as effective as 6 doses of the gold standard treatment for nasal MRSA carriage - this is the initial target market for epidermicin. This represents significant competitive advantage over current and developmental agents in this ~$100M per year market. Epdiermicin has a good in vitro profile for use in therapy of dermatological infections, including impetigo, with significantly larger markets. However, the development of the epidermicins is greatly hampered by their very low production in the native host and synthetic production would be prohibitively expensive. This project aims to use Ingenza's cutting-edge, propriety technology to develop efficient, scalable microbial production systems for epidermicins and other peptides, enabling their development into a new platform of effective antibiotics.

Summary

Antibiotic resistant bacteria kill over 25,000 people a year in Europe and threaten a return to a time when minor infections can be fatal and routine surgery poses high risks. With development pipelines empty, there is a critical need for novel therapies to kill antibiotic resistant bacteria and serve as scaffolds for derivatisation, diversification and enhancement of efficacy, which proved successful with drugs like penicillin. Epidermicins are an exciting new class of antimicrobial biologics (ABs) that rapidly kill bacteria, at very low doses and have great potential to prevent or treat bacterial infections including those caused by resistant bacteria. However, the development of the epidermicins is greatly hampered by their very low production in the native host and synthetic production would be prohibitively expensive. This project aims to develop efficient, scalable microbial production systems for epidermicins, enabling their development into a new platform of effective antibiotics.

Impact Summary

As described in proposal submitted to TSB
Committee Research Committee D (Molecules, cells and industrial biotechnology)
Research TopicsIndustrial Biotechnology, Microbiology, Synthetic Biology
Research PriorityX – Research Priority information not available
Research Initiative Industrial Biotechnology Catalyst (IBCAT) [2014-2015]
Funding SchemeX – not Funded via a specific Funding Scheme
terms and conditions of use (opens in new window)
export PDF file
back to list new search