Biophysical Society Thematic Meeting | Stockholm 2022

Physical and Quantitative Approaches to Overcome Antibiotic Resistance

Tuesday Speaker Abstracts

FAST, SMART THERAPEUTIC SOLUTIONS FOR PANDEMIC RESPONSE Anushree Chatterjee ; 1 University of Colorado Boulder, Chemical and Biological Engineering, Boulder, CO, USA 2 Sachi Bioworks, Louisville, CO, USA 3 Antimicrobial Regeneration Consortium, Boulder, CO, USA The rapid rise of multidrug-resistant (MDR) superbugs and novel strains of viruses and the declining antibiotic and antiviral pipeline are serious challenges to global health. Rational design of therapeutics can accelerate development of effective therapies against infectious pathogens and dampen the impact of pandemics. In this talk, I will describe multi-pronged systems, synthetic biology, and nano-biotechnology based approaches being devised in our lab to rationally engineer therapeutics that can overcome antimicrobial resistance in MDR bacteria as well as respond to SARS-CoV2 virus by developing antivirals in real-time. We have engineered antisense therapeutics that inhibit desired genes in a species-specific manner for targeted inhibition. Using this approach, we have built a platform that can accelerate therapeutic development in less than a week. We have shown that we can create novel antibiotics that can kill a range of WHO (World Health Organization) top priority I MDR pathogens, as well as reduce infection from SARS-COV2. I will also present a nano-biotechnology based approach involving development of a unique semiconductor material-based quantum dot-antibiotic (QD ABx) which, when activated by stimuli, release reactive oxygen species to eliminate a broad range of MDR bacterial clinical isolates. We have validated both these platforms in number of pre-clinical studies and continue to advance these therapeutic modalities further. The platforms and inter-disciplinary approaches presented in this talk offer novel methods for rationally engineering new therapeutics to combat disease challenges.

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