Antimicrobial innovation by larger pharmaceutical companies has slowed while an epidemic of antimicrobial- resistant infections surges, threatening the public health. The overarching goal of the Wisconsin Antimicrobial Drug Discovery and Development Center is to develop therapeutic countermeasures to tackle the antimicrobial resistance crisis. Based upon our preliminary data, we hypothesize that natural product exploration of symbiotic environments using complementary cutting-edge approaches will provide a new paradigm for discovery of novel antimicrobials targeting drug resistant infections. The Center proposes innovative conceptual and technical advances to overcome critical bottlenecks identified in traditional antimicrobial drug discovery platforms. The success of this endeavor is dependent upon the ability to predict antimicrobial effectiveness of the symbiotic natural products in patients. The In vivo Core will assess the in vivo microbiologic effectiveness, mammalian safety, pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of promising novel natural product scaffolds from each Project (1, 2, 3) in the Center. The Core uses clinically relevant murine infection models with each of the target, drug-resistant pathogens ? Gram negative bacteria and fungi. The results from these Core activities will predict which compounds with promising in vitro activity against drug -resistant pathogens are likely to progress to a clinically useful antimicrobial drug. The core services will also provide data that answer the question: which of the novel discovery approaches employed by our three CETR projects best delivers lead antimicrobial compounds. Elucidation of optimal discovery strategies will yield a transformative and sustained impact on the development of new drugs.
MDR bacterial and fungal pathogens for which there are no effective therapies (drug-resistant) are rapidly emerging. The proposed investigations will optimize a new platform for discovery of the next generation of antimicrobial drugs. This platform takes advantage of the evolutionary selection of highly relevant natural products from symbiotic relationships between animals and antibiotic producing bacterial. The In vivo Core will determine which of the natural products from this discovery approach exhibit efficacy and safety characteristics needed for clinically useful antimicrobial therapy.
