An innovative antibiotic class for drug-resistant bacteria

New active compounds inspired by a bacterium

26-Nov-2024 - Antibacterial drugs are important to treat infections. But increasing bacterial resistance to current drugs — making them ineffective or only partially effective — means that new ones are urgently needed. Building on previous work, researchers from the Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical ...

Predicting the mode of action of new anti-cancer drugs with AI

Acceleration of the development of new cancer drugs

22-Nov-2024 - Plants, fungi and bacteria produce a variety of active substances that alter cell metabolism, sometimes to the point of cell death. This makes them promising candidates for new drugs against cancer and other diseases. Although a diverse range of bioactives exists, the further development of new ...

New drugs from toxic birds

Investigation of the symbiosis between bacteria and birds leads to the discovery of new natural products with antimicrobial properties

10-Oct-2024 - Bacteria are a valuable source for the discovery of natural products that can be used for the development of new drugs. A HIPS research team has now identified two new classes of active substances with antimicrobial properties from bacteria that live in symbiosis with a toxic bird. This strategy ...

A new drug target for psychiatric disorders

11-Sep-2024 - Misha Kudryashev’s lab at the Max Delbrück Center has identified a molecular intermediate of a serotonin receptor that is involved in diseases such as depression and schizophrenia. The study points to a potentially new target for therapeutics. A new study published in “The EMBO Journal” points ...

Finding unknown effects of existing drugs

Proteins as the key to precision medicine

05-Aug-2024 - Fewer side effects, improved chances of healing: the goal of precision medicine is to provide patients with the most individualized treatment possible. This requires a precise understanding of what is happening at the cellular level. For the first time, researchers at the Technical University of ...

How bacteria attach their cloaks of invisibility to immune defences

Starting point for new antibacterial drugs

01-Aug-2024 - Bacteria have different strategies for protecting themselves. Some bacterial pathogens surround themselves with a shell made of many sugar chains that lie close together, also known as capsular polymers. This protects the bacteria from drying out and physical stress. In addition, the capsule ...

Searching for the microbial treasure

New family of bacteria with high pharmaceutical potential discovered

17-May-2024 - Most antibiotics used in human medicine originate from natural products derived from bacteria and other microbes. Novel microorganisms are therefore a promising source of new active compounds - also for the treatment of diseases such as cancer or viral infections. A team from the Helmholtz ...

Antimicrobial agents of the future

Researchers conducted the first systematic study of CRISPR-based antibiotics in Klebsiella pneumoniae

29-Apr-2024 - The antimicrobial potential of CRISPR-Cas systems is promising, yet how to best design or implement CRISPR nucleases remains poorly understood. An international team led by the Helmholtz Institute for RNA-based Infection Research (HIRI) in Würzburg has now addressed this knowledge gap. The ...

Researchers discover novel antibiotic substance from the human nose

Previously unknown class of antimicrobial compounds that kills microorganisms could be used as a lead structure for the development of novel antibiotics

22-Dec-2023 - For the first time, the active substance epifadin has been isolated at the University of Tübingen – Epifadin is produced by specific bacteria in the nose and on the skin of humans, has an antibiotic effect, and is the first example of a previously unknown antimicrobial compound class. Researchers ...

Pharmaceutical research knocking on wood

Researchers establish green pharmaceutical production from wood waste

20-Nov-2023 - Sustainable and environmentally friendly production processes are playing an increasingly important role in almost all branches of industry. The production of active pharmaceutical ingredients in particular involves the use of various materials and reagents, many of which have environmentally ...