Superdrugs vs Superbugs

Reducing the burden of infectious diseases by applying multidisciplinary and collaborative research to craft innovative, translational solutions.

Our group is focused on applying medicinal chemistry to the discovery of translational solutions to antimicrobial resistance.

We work on developing new antibiotics, novel non-antibiotic therapies, diagnostics, and basic research tools to help understand the interactions between antibiotics and resistant bacteria.

While our emphasis is on bacterial infections, we are also exploring solutions to fungal, parasitic and viral diseases.

Key breakthroughs & discoveries

• Discovery that cannabidoids such as CBD are a potential new class of antibiotics with activity against many Gram-positive bacteria including MRSA and a select subset of Gram-negative bacteria such as N. gonnorhoeae (Communications Biology, 4 (1) 7, 1-18. doi: 10.1038/s42003-020-01530-y)
• Discovery that metal-containing complexes are a rich and unexplored source for new antibiotics (Chemical Science (2020) 11, 2627-2639 doi: 10.1039/C9SC06460)
• Discovery and development of a new 'supercharged' class of glycopeptide antibiotics effective against resistant Gram-positive bacteria (Nature Communications, (2018) 9, 22 and WO 2015/117196-A1 “Antibacterial Agents”
• WO/2019/084628 “Peptide Antibiotics”, Cooper, M.; Blaskovich, M.; Gallardo-Godoy, A., Hansford, K., Elliott, A. -new lipopeptide ‘last resort’ antibiotic for highly drug resistant Gram-negative bacteria
• WO/2018/102890 “Visualisation Constructs”, Blaskovich, M., Cooper, M.; Butler, M.; Stone, R.; Phetsang, W. – new probes to visualise bacteria
• WO/2018/102889 “Glycopeptide Antibiotic Constructs”, Blaskovich, M.; Cooper, M.; Ranzoni, A., Phetsang, W.; Hassan, M. P - functionalised antibiotics to develop new dignaostics
• WO 2015/117196-A1 “Antibacterial Agents” . Cooper, M., Blaskovich, M. – novel ‘supercharged’ glycopeptide antibiotic for Gram-positive bacteria

Our facilities & services

• Full synthetic and medicinal chemistry services
• A suite of microbiological assays, ranging from simple in vitro MIC assays through to mouse in vivo infection models.
• Screening for antimicrobial activity via the Community for Open Antimicrobial Drug Discovery (www.co-add.org)