Exploring novel antimicrobial bionanomaterials through molecular dynamics simulations and neutron research

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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.