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

General Information

• Project title: Reviving the activity of ineffective antimycotics against MDR fungals via combination therapy with antimicrobial peptides or mimics
• Type: Project looking for partner
• Organisation: The University of New South Wales
• Country: Australia (AU)
• Career stage: Other.

Research area

• Scientific area(s) of the call:
  1. Topic 1: Design novel or improved interventions to prevent, mitigate and /or treat fungal infections, which are resistant to treatments and/or are at risk of developing resistance
• Subtopics:

• One Health Setting:

  Human Health

  Animal Health (incl. wildlife, livestock, acquatic organisms, and companion animals)

• Keywords:

  combination therapy; antimicrobial peptides; polymers; drug delivery; fungal eye infections

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

  My group works at the interface of organic/polymer chemistry, nanotechnology, materials science and microbiology. We have expertise in the field of developing antimicrobial peptide mimics either as sole antimicrobial agent or as adjuvants in combination therapy to repurpose/revive the activity of antibiotics that are no longer effective against multidrug-resistant bacteria. We have several publications in this field, please kindly check our group website.

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

  We are hoping to build upon this project and I have another collaborator here in Australia who could do in vivo animal models for eye fungal infection. The idea is to screen for many other compounds out there besides ours for new synergy combinations that could repurpose ineffective antibiotics/antifungals. It will be great if there are others here who are either working on antimicrobial peptide mimics, combination therapy, in vivo fungal infection models, mechanism understanding to determine why and how the adjuvant is reviving the susceptibility of the drugs.

Dr Edgar Wong

• Organisation: The University of New South Wales
• Position: Senior Lecturer and ARC Future Fellow
• E-mail: edgar.wong@unsw.edu.au
• Web: edgarwonglab.com