17th JPIAMR transnational call for research projects - AMR Interventions 2024 (IMPACT)

General Information

• Project title: Reviving the peptide antibiotic ramoplanin
• Type: Project looking for partner
• Organisation: Monash University
• Country: Australia (AU)
• Career stage: Other.

Research area

• Scientific area(s) of the call:
  1. Topic 2: Improve and/or, compare and/or evaluate strategies, technologies, treatments, methods, protocols or data collection based on existing interventions, aiming to prevent or reduce the emergence or spread of antibacterial or antifungal resistance or to treat/cure infections caused by resistant bacteria/fungi and recommend new policies.
• Subtopics:
  1. Improve and/or compare and/ or evaluate the effectiveness of existing interventions (e.g. cost effectiveness clinical utility, socio-economic adaptability, reducing AMR emergence, spread, transmission, treatment etc.)

• One Health Setting:

  Human Health

• Keywords:

  Ramoplanin; lead optimization; peptide chemistry; lipid II binding; C. Difficile

• Brief description of your expertise / expertise you are looking for:

  Our team expertise includes peptide medicinal chemistry, the biophysics of lipid II and membranes, and the microbiology of C. Difficile (in vitro and in vivo). Also, we have in-house standard in vitro assays for antimicrobial and toxicity determinations as a base. So, we are interested in partners having expertise in ex vivo models and pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics.

• Brief description of your project / the project you would like to join:

  Since 2007, the peptide antibiotic ramoplanin has suffered a drug discovery void. In the AMR context, the intrinsic qualities of this molecule including activity against all vancomycin-resistant pathogens or C. Difficile, limited resistance mechanisms and high druggability makes of ramoplanin an ideal candidate to develop a last resort drug against gram-positive and C. Difficile infections. To date, we have harnessed the chemistry (Dr Julien Tailhades) and have access to a library of synthetic peptides offering the possibility to solve the red-blood-cell toxicity identified during the first set of in vivo studies. Overall, we have started to refine the mechanism of action and to perform an in vitro quantitative structure-activity and toxicity relationship aiming to identify the peptide antibiotics with the highest therapeutic index.

julien tailhades

• Organisation: Monash University
• Position: Senior Research Fellow
• E-mail: julien.tailhades@monash.edu
• Phone: +61404552338