success-story

Antimicrobial-resistant (AMR) infections pose a serious risk to human and animal health. A major factor contributing to this global crisis is the sharing of resistance genes between different bacteria via plasmids. The WHO lists Enterobacteriaceae, such as Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae, producing extended-spectrum ␤-lactamases (ESBL) and carbapenemases as “critical” priorities for new drug development. […]

In most ecosystems, bacteria exist primarily as structured surface-associated biofilms that can be highly tolerant to antibiotics and thus represent an important health issue. Here, we explored drug repurposing as a strategy to identify new anti- biofilm compounds, screening over 1,000 compounds from the Prestwick Chemical Library of approved drugs for specific activities that prevent […]

Virtual screening (VS) methods have emerged as an adaptive response to massive throughput synthesis and screening technologies. Based on the structure-permeability paradigm, the Lipinski rule of five has become a standard property filtering protocol for VS. Three possible VS scenarios with respect to optimising binding affinity and pharmacokinetic properties are discussed. The parsimony principle for […]

The hallmark pathological features of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) brains are senile plaques, comprising β-amyloid (Aβ) peptides, and neuronal inclusions formed from tau protein. These plaques form 10 -20 years before AD symptom onset, whereas robust tau pathology is more closely associated with symptoms and correlates with cognitive status. This temporal sequence of AD pathology development, […]

Prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed malignancy in men. Its growth mainly relies on the activity of the androgen receptor (AR), justifying the use of androgen deprivation therapy as a gold standard treatment for the metastatic disease. Inhibition of the androgen axis using second generation antagonists has improved patients’ survival, but is systematically confronted […]

Treatment options for gonorrhoea are scarce. Drug repurposing of bioactive molecules approved for other conditions might therefore be of value. We developed a method for wide-scale, systematic drug repurposing screen to identify molecules with activity against Neisseria gonorrhoeae and screened the Prestwick Chemical Library (1200 FDA-approved drugs). As a proof-of-concept, we further examined one promising […]

Objectives: The incidence of severe filamentous fungal infections has increased over the past decade. Some of these filamentous fungi are resistant to available antifungals; it is thus urgent to find new compounds that are active against such life-threatening pathogens. Methods: In this study, 1280 drugs (Prestwick Chemical Library) were tested against six multidrug-resistant (MDR) filamentous […]

Background: Fanconi anemia is a rare disease clinically characterized by malformations, bone marrow failure and an increased risk of solid tumors and hematologic malignancies. The only therapies available are hematopoietic stem cell transplantation for bone marrow failure or leukemia, and surgical resection for solid tumors. Therefore, there is still an urgent need for new therapeutic […]

Spinal muscular atrophy is a rare and fatal neuromuscular disorder caused by the loss of alpha motor neurons. The affected individuals have mutated the ubiquitously expressed SMN1 gene resulting in the loss or reduction in the survival motor neuron (SMN) protein levels. However, an almost identical paralog exists in humans: SMN2. Pharmacological activation of SMN2 […]

Active efflux of antibiotics preventing their accumulation to toxic intracellular concentrations contributes to clinically relevant multidrug resistance. Inhibition of active efflux potentiates antibiotic activity, indicating that efflux inhibitors could be used in combination with antibiotics to reverse drug resistance. Expression of ramA by Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium increases in response to efflux inhibition, irrespective of […]