Seminar on Bacterial cell membrane: Targeting the Achilles' heel to combat drug-resistance and infections

The Department of Chemistry will host a seminar on Tuesday, 09th March 2014.

Speaker         : Dr.Jayanta Haldar, Faculty Fellow, New Chemistry Unit, JNCASR, Bangalore

Seminar Title  : Bacterial cell membrane: Targeting the Achilles' heel to combat drug-resistance and infections

Venue            :  Conference room-2

Date & Time   :  09th September 2014; 11:00 am

Abstract: 

Cell membrane, the Achilles’ heel of bacteria is vital for its various cellular processes such as cell division, energy generation/metabolism/respiration, cell wall and lipid biosynthesis, transport systems, membrane-bound proteins and enzymes, and permeability of ions. Targeting the bacterial cell membrane is a promising approach to combat drug resistance as it is expensive for the bacteria to develop resistance against the membrane-active molecules. At our laboratory, we develop molecular strategies/platforms to target bacterial cell membranes for the prevention and treatment of bacterial infections. For the prevention of bacterial infections, we develop antimicrobial polymeric coatings which can be applied on day-to-day surfaces that humans touch. Development of novel membrane-active molecules is taken as one approach to develop future antibiotics. An interesting approach for incorporating membrane-active properties into the known antibiotics like vancomycin and tetracyclines has been adopted to re-instate their efficacy against several multi-drug resistant pathogens. We strongly believe that targeting the Achilles’ heel of bacteria is the way to win the war against microbes.