Project Details
Projekt
SFB 630: Recognition, Preparation and Functional Analysis of Agents against Infectious Diseases
Subject Area
Chemistry
Biology
Medicine
Biology
Medicine
Term
from 2003 to 2015
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 5485822
In view of the urgent demand to develop novel antiinfectious drugs, the Collaborative Research Centre was established with the aim to discover new antiinfectives and to characterise them using molecular tools. In an interdisciplinary approach, the molecular structures of novel antiinfectious agents, their physico-chemical properties and their modes of action in systems related to infectious processes are determined.
According to WHO, infectious diseases still cause one third of mortalities worldwide. Tropical parasitic diseases like malaria, amoebic dysentery and sleeping sickness contribute largely to the burden of illness owing to the lack of suitable vaccines. Moreover, resistances against well-established drugs such as chloroquine are dramatically increasing. Infectious diseases also constitute an increasing problem for industrialised countries because of the rise of multiresistant nosocomial pathogens, accounting for an estimated one million incidences in Germany each year. A strong re-emergence of tuberculosis and fungal infections, predominantly affecting patients suffering from immunosuppressive disorders, has also been observed during the past years. Moreover, drug resistance has drastically increased for these severe pathogens. Despite an increasing number of novel types of infectious parasites and an alarming development of resistances, research efforts targeting antiinfective drugs have nearly come to a halt during the past decades. To promote new strategies for the discovery and development of antiinfectives, the Collaborative Research Centre has started its work at the University of Würzburg in July 2003. The following aims are in the scope of the 14 research projects involved:
-- identification of novel antiinfectious drugs, i.a. from "unusual sources" (like, e.g., from marine microorganisms);
-- structural characterisation and chemical modification of novel bioactive compounds for the optimisation of the antimicrobial and pharmacological properties;
-- characterisation of the modes of action of promising substances using infection assays to gain basic knowledge on the selectivity of these compounds and applying an efficient structural chemistry in combination with imaging techniques (NMR, vibrational spectroscopy) and the theoretical characterisation of the systems investigated (especially how antiinfectives might influence the pathogen-host interaction).
According to WHO, infectious diseases still cause one third of mortalities worldwide. Tropical parasitic diseases like malaria, amoebic dysentery and sleeping sickness contribute largely to the burden of illness owing to the lack of suitable vaccines. Moreover, resistances against well-established drugs such as chloroquine are dramatically increasing. Infectious diseases also constitute an increasing problem for industrialised countries because of the rise of multiresistant nosocomial pathogens, accounting for an estimated one million incidences in Germany each year. A strong re-emergence of tuberculosis and fungal infections, predominantly affecting patients suffering from immunosuppressive disorders, has also been observed during the past years. Moreover, drug resistance has drastically increased for these severe pathogens. Despite an increasing number of novel types of infectious parasites and an alarming development of resistances, research efforts targeting antiinfective drugs have nearly come to a halt during the past decades. To promote new strategies for the discovery and development of antiinfectives, the Collaborative Research Centre has started its work at the University of Würzburg in July 2003. The following aims are in the scope of the 14 research projects involved:
-- identification of novel antiinfectious drugs, i.a. from "unusual sources" (like, e.g., from marine microorganisms);
-- structural characterisation and chemical modification of novel bioactive compounds for the optimisation of the antimicrobial and pharmacological properties;
-- characterisation of the modes of action of promising substances using infection assays to gain basic knowledge on the selectivity of these compounds and applying an efficient structural chemistry in combination with imaging techniques (NMR, vibrational spectroscopy) and the theoretical characterisation of the systems investigated (especially how antiinfectives might influence the pathogen-host interaction).
DFG Programme
Collaborative Research Centres
Completed projects
- A01 - Small molecules for the treatment of infectious deseases (Project Head Holzgrabe, Ulrike )
- A02 - A new class of active agents against infectious diseases (Project Head Bringmann, Gerhard )
- A03 - Target-oriented conbinatorial symthesis of potential new antiinfective lead structures (Project Head Schmuck, Carsten )
- A04 - Proteases as targets for agents against infectious diseases (Project Head Schirmeister, Tanja )
- A04 - Proteases as targets for new antiinfective agents (Project Head Schirmeister, Tanja )
- A05 - Sponge-associated actinomycetes as sources for novel antiinfectives (Project Head Hentschel-Humeida, Ute )
- B01 - Prolylisomerases and serine proteases as targets for rational drug development (Project Head Hacker, Jörg Hinrich )
- B02 - Inhibition of virulence and resistance mechanisms of Candida albicans (Project Head Morschhäuser, Joachim )
- B03 - Mitochondria, endosomes and autophagolysosomes as targets of leishmanicidal agents (Project Heads Moll, Heidrun ; Schurigt, Uta )
- B05 - Drug-induced gene expression in staphylococci and magnetic resonance-based imaging of infections (Project Heads Jakob, Peter M. ; Ohlsen, Knut )
- B07 - Structure-based drug design on essential enzymes from pathogens (Project Head Kisker, Caroline )
- B08 - VSG as unexpected drug target for sleeping sickness (Project Head Engstler, Markus )
- B09 - Active Agents against Acute and Disseminating Neisseria Infections (Project Heads Kozjak-Pavlovic, Vera ; Rudel, Thomas )
- C01 - CARS microscopy, Raman and IR spectroscopy for the localization and characterization of drugs and their interactions (Project Head Schlücker, Sebastian )
- C02 - NMR spectroscopy and imaging for in vivo and in vitro characterisation of infections and agents against infectious disease (Project Heads Faber, Cornelius ; Haase, Axel ; Jakob, Peter M. )
- C03 - Theoretical studies to characterize inhibition mechanisms and ligand-target complexes (Project Head Engels, Bernd )
- C5 - Quantitative Struktur-Wirkungsbeziehungen (QSAR) und chemometrische Verfahren zur beschleunigten Optimierung antiinfektiver Wirkstoffe (Project Head Baumann, Knut )
- C06 - Metabolic and bioinformatical analysis of drug effects on cellular networks (Project Heads Dandekar, Thomas ; Unger, Matthias )
- C07 - Computational structure-based drug design for the identification and characterization of new inhibitors of antimicrobial targets (Project Head Sotriffer, Christoph )
- Z01 - Laboratory for the evaluation of potential anti-infectives (Project Heads Meinel, Lorenz ; Stich, August ; Ölschläger, Tobias )
- Z02 - Central tasks of the collaborative research centre (Project Head Bringmann, Gerhard )
- Z3 - Zentrale Verwaltung (Project Head Bringmann, Gerhard )
Applicant Institution
Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg
Spokesperson
Professor Dr. Gerhard Bringmann
