IDENTIFYING NEW DRUG TARGETS TO COMBAT PATHOGENIC INFECTIONS: AN INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACH

摘要

Todays’ medical treatments are faced with alarming resistance devel- opment of pathogenic bacteria, due to (amongst other factors) the abundant and often inappropriate use of antibiotics. The development of a novel class of antibiotics has therefore become a major research theme. This paper presents a conceptual overview of how this quest is tackled in a multidisciplinary fashion when the focus lies on detecting and understanding regulatory pathways that lead to virulence. The importance of well designed and controlled bioreactor experiments as well as the integration (into mathematical models) of data, collected at di erent levels and from di erent sources, will be stressed.