Developing a High Throughput Platform for Antibiotic Characterization
Protein interactions with other proteins, DNA, RNA, and glycomolecules—collectively protein-biomacromolecule interactions (PBMIs)—are essential for nearly all cellular processes. Despite their importance, they remain poor therapeutic targets due to the difficulty in disrupting these interactions. As PBMIs are necessary for the progression of many diseases, including pathogen invasion of hosts, and are known to evolve to evade treatment, the ability to target and disrupt these interactions is essential to effectively combat such illnesses. Despite therapeutic interests in PBMI targets and an obvious need for high-throughput screens of disruptors to identify compounds resistant to mutations, there is currently no definitive platform to screen drugs targeting PBMIs and disease-relevant mutations that could lead to drug evasion. An integrated platform to 1) study PBMIs and their disruption, 2) screen drug libraries against these interactions, and 3) discover mutations to enable evasion of disruptive treatment is a critical need and is not achievable with existing methods. We are developing an electrochemical technology that enables the study and rapid screening of PBMIs, their disruption, and their evolution under disruptive pressure to yield a previously-unattainable integrated platform.
