Major grant to develop new antibiotics

Chemistry’s Dr Peter Roach has been awarded £1.62million over five years to continue his work to develop new antibiotics.

New drugs are urgently needed to combat bacteria which are becoming resistant to commonly used antibiotics. Peter’s team at Southampton will continue their successful long term collaboration with microbiologists led by Professor Petra Oyston at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) at Porton Down in this project.

“Our multi-disciplinary approach will help us understand more about how bacterial infections attack the human body and how we can neutralise them,” explains Peter. “Few new antibiotics have been developed over the last 20 years and there is a real danger that current drugs will become ineffective in future.”

The project ‘Understanding the Stringent Response of Intracellular Pathogens’ is funded by the US Defence Threat Reduction Agency.