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From 2013.igem.org

Title

The Beast and its Achilles Heel®

Abstract

Since the discovery of penicillin by Alexander Fleming in 1928, antibiotics have marked a major victory of mankind in the battle against infectious diseases. However, after 90 years, the antibiotics are now losing their old time glory: Bacteria acquire resistance against antibiotics and become unbridled. We must control the use of antibiotics, meanwhile, we need new antibiotics, which can suffiently eliminate the invaders without hurting the "good" bacteria. Therefore, c-di-AMP, an important, recently discovered signaling molecule in gram-positive bacteria, has come to our sight. Our project is to build a screening system targeting c-di-AMP, which could be applied in novel-drug screening. With this system, the level of c-di-AMP in the cell can be visualised and measured.

Project Abstract and Title

Project Title: The Beast and its Achilles Heel®
Project Abstract: Since the discovery of penicillin by Alexander Fleming in 1928, antibiotics have marked a major victory of mankind in the battle against infectious diseases. However, after 90 years, the antibiotics are now losing their old time glory: Bacteria acquire resistance against antibiotics and become unbridled.

We must control the use of antibiotics, meanwhile, we need new antibiotics, which can suffiently eliminate the invaders without hurting the "good" bacteria. Therefore, c-di-AMP, an important, recently discovered signaling molecule in gram-positive bacteria, has come to our sight.

Our project is to build a screening system targeting c-di-AMP, which could be applied in novel-drug screening. With this system, the level of c-di-AMP in the cell can be visualised and measured.