UBC scientists set to recharge old antibiotics
Researchers at the University of B. C. are examining the defences of drug- resistant bacteria in an effort to rescue oldschool antibiotics from the medical dustbin.
While it was inevitable that bacteria would develop resistance to the most widely prescribed classes of antibiotics, it doesn’t have to stay that way, said Natalie Strynadka, a professor of biochemistry in UBC’s Faculty of Medicine and the Canada Research Chair in Antibiotic Discovery and Medicine.
Bacteria evolve new defences so quickly that pharmaceutical research must continually find new ways to kill them. But lately, even that hasn’t been enough.
New Delhi metallo- beta lactamase ( NDM- 1) is a newly emerging enzyme that literally dismantles the drugs we use to kill harmful bacteria.
That’s bad news because NDM1 degrades a broad range of antibiotics, including some that were developed to treat antibiotic- resistant superbugs.
Strynadka’s lab is revealing the molecular structure of the enzyme and looking for weaknesses, specifically, locations that a drug molecule can snap onto like a Lego piece and thwart its destructive effect on antibiotics.
Using advanced genomic analysis, the researchers are able identify the proteins that make up the enzyme and to visualize the enzyme in three dimensions, atom by atom.
New drugs that disarm a superbug’s defences can give new life to old- school antibiotics when they are used together in a kind of “drug cocktail,” Strynadka said.
Strynadka will share in a $ 2- million grant to UBC researchers from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research announced this week.