MEDINA Presented A Novel Family of Natural Products Antibiotics with Broad Spectrum Against Gram-negative Pathogens at ICAAC 2013

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Granada, Spain, October 8, 2013 / B3C newswire / - Fundación MEDINA and Cubist Pharmaceuticals presented research data at ICAAC 2013 on a novel family of natural products antibiotics addressing the emerging threat from Gram-negative pathogens.

Together scientists from Fundación MEDINA and Cubist Pharmaceuticals have discovered a new family of natural molecules that could serve as a scaffold to build next-generations antibiotics. These newly discovered molecules have unprecedented chemical structures and are completely different than antibiotics that have been or are currently being used by doctors. The results from this study were presented in September as a Poster (F1215), at ICCAC 53rd, Denver, Colorado. The data show that these compounds have specific in vitro activity against Gram-negative bacteria such as A. baumannii, P. aeruginosa and E. coli, identified as "superbugs" given their high resistance levels to current antibiotics in the clinic.

This discovery could also mean that many new useful antibiotics remain to be discovered in nature and could be developed to fight against human disease and the emergence of bacterial resistance and super bugs, an increasing public health threat.

This new family of compounds was identified from a crude fermentation extract produced by a filamentous fungus. These results also show that these new molecules are believed to work by interfering with the process by which bacteria build their cells wall.

The new family of molecules was discovered by scientists from Fundacion MEDINA of Granada, Spain, and Cubist Pharmaceuticals, Inc of Lexington, MA, USA, from a joint effort targeted at screening the microbial natural product libraries of Fundación MEDINA looking for new antibiotics to combat infectious diseases.


About Fundación MEDINA
Fundación MEDINA is a non-profit research organization established in Granada, Spain, from the private-public partnership between the Government of Andalucía, the University of Granada and Merck Sharp and Dohme de España S.A. Fundación MEDINA owns one of the largest and most chemically diverse microbial Natural Products Libraries of extracts with a long, successful track record in delivering novel drug candidates in the pharmaceutical sector. Fundación MEDINA has unique expertise in natural products microbiology, chemistry and high throughput screening, and develops drug discovery programs in infectious diseases (including tuberculosis and parasitic diseases), oncology, and rare diseases. Fundación MEDINA is establishing contract research collaborations and partnerships with pharma and biotech companies to discover novel therapeutics.


Contact:

Olga Genilloud, PhD
Fundación MEDINA
Avda del Conocimiento 3
Parque Tecnológico Ciencias de la Salud
18100 Armilla, Granada, SPAIN
Phone +34 958 993 965
Fax +34 958 846 710
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