New platform explores alternative strategies to fight fungal infections
With innovative ideas and interdisciplinary collaboration, new European platform FunHitDisco is about to pave the way for a new generation of antifungal drugs. “We have gathered a team of young experts with a shared goal to launch a number of promising substances,” say Lindon Moodie and Luke Robertson, researchers at Uppsala University.
Infections caused by drug-resistant fungi are one of the main causes of illness and mortality among patients with a weakened immune system. Despite a century of pharmaceutical research, healthcare only has a few drugs at its disposal and now the Swedish Research Council is investing SEK 5 million in the new European platform FunHitDisco, which with innovative ideas aims to pave the way for a new generation of antifungal substances.
Lindon Moodie and Luke Robertson, Uppsala University
“Modifying existing drugs can at best delay the inevitable resistance, and we are currently facing a global challenge accelerating so rapidly that we must look outside the traditional box. Our platform gathers a team of young experts with the interdisciplinary expertise needed to find new molecular starting points for antifungal drug discovery,” states Lindon Moodie, platform coordinator and Associate Professor at Uppsala University.
The platform, that has received a total of SEK 15 million in funding, will focus its operations along two lines: At Amsterdam’s Vrije Universiteit, large quantities of peptides labeled with ribonucleic acid will be screened with the aim to identify candidates that bind to fungal proteins and constitute potential allies in the battle against treatment-resistant fungal infections. In Uppsala, Luke Robertson, a researcher in Pharmacognosy, will enlist bacteria to help fight the fungi.
“Bacteria naturally secrete bioactive molecules that are toxic to fungi as they are biological competitors. But in a laboratory environment they only produce a small fraction of the substances that they have the genetic instructions to make. Our strategy is to use different chemicals to stimulate the bacteria to optimize their production of antifungal molecules, and as soon as we get the hits we are looking for, we can program the bacteria to create the quantities we need,” says Luke Robertson.
FunHitDisco gather research environments in Sweden, Italy, the Netherlands and Poland. The work will initially continue until 2028. Once there, the ambition is to have demonstrated that the platform's design works and to have identified and chemically optimized a number of promising candidates ready for continued development in the pharmaceutical industry.
Facts
- FunHitDisco (Fungal Hit Discovery Platform) is an international platform for the development of new treatments against antimicrobial resistant fungal infections.
- By combining medicinal chemistry, microbiology and structural biology, the platform aims to identify relevant substances and target proteins.
- Lindon Moodie and Luke Robertson (Uppsala University, SE), Seino Jongkees (Vrije Universiteit, NL), Maria Klimecka (University of Warsaw, PL) and Francesca Bugli (Fondazione Policlinico Universitario Agostino Gemelli IRCCS, IT) will participate in the platform's work.
- The platform is coordinated at Uppsala University's Department of Medicinal Chemistry with support by the Swedish Research Council and the Joint Programming Initiative on Antimicrobial Resistance (JPIAMR).
Contact
Lindon Moodie, Associate Professor
Department of Medicinal Chemistry
Lindon.Moodie@ilk.uu.se
Luke Robertson, Researcher
Department of Pharmaceutical Biosciences
Luke.Robertson@uu.se
text: Magnus Alsne, photo: Mikael Wallerstedt