Exploring novel antimicrobial bionanomaterials through molecular dynamics simulations and neutron research

通过分子动力学模拟和中子研究探索新型抗菌生物纳米材料

• 批准号: 2777325
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Manchester
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2021 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2777325
• 关键词: Exploring; novel; antimicrobial; bionanomaterials; through

Antibiotic resistance is fast becoming a major healthcare challenge and is one of the top threats to human health as only a limited number of effective antibiotics are left in the world. This research project contributes to the development of novel antimicrobial peptides as a solution towards fighting bacterial and fungal resistances. Unlike many existing antibiotics that target bacterial cell walls, proteins and genetic molecules, the antimicrobial peptides this project aims to design and develop, kill pathogens by imposing physical destructions to their membranes and causing leakage. The objectives of the project work are to understand how antimicrobial peptides interact with bacterial membranes by combining experiments and computational modelling. Neutron reflection and scattering combined with deuterium labelling are particularly powerful at unravelling structural features associated with the interactions between lipid membranes and antimicrobial peptides. This project falls in the area of soft mater and biophysics.

抗生素耐药性正在迅速成为一个主要的医疗保健挑战，是人类健康的最大威胁之一，因为世界上只剩下有限数量的有效抗生素。该研究项目有助于开发新型抗菌肽，作为对抗细菌和真菌耐药性的解决方案。与许多现有的针对细菌细胞壁、蛋白质和遗传分子的抗生素不同，该项目旨在设计和开发的抗菌肽通过对病原体的膜施加物理破坏并导致泄漏来杀死病原体。该项目工作的目标是通过结合实验和计算建模来了解抗菌肽如何与细菌膜相互作用。中子反射和散射结合氘标记是特别强大的解开与脂质膜和抗菌肽之间的相互作用的结构特征。这个项目属于软物质和生物物理领域的福尔斯。