Emerging Trends in Antibacterial Discovery: Answering the Call to Arms

As bacterial antibiotic resistance continues to exhaust our supply of effective antibiotics, a global public health disaster appears likely. Poor financial investment in antibiotic research has exacerbated the situation. A call to arms raised by several prestigious scientific organisations a few years ago rallied the scientific community, and now the scope of antibacterial research has broadened considerably. Multi-disciplinary approaches have yielded a wealth of new data on areas ranging from the identification of novel antibacterial targets to the use of biological agents for antibacterial therapy. In this book, respected international experts summarize the most important concepts and pioneering strategies currently being used to develop novel antibacterials. The book opens with chapters on cellular processes that could be used as novel antibacterial targets. Examples include cell division, efflux pumps, metabolite-sensing riboswitches and bacterial secretion systems. These are followed by excellent chapters on the identification of new, naturally occurring antibacterial agents, including phage and biosynthetically engineered compounds. Understanding the host-microbe interaction and microbial communities and how they can be exploited to develop new antibacterial strategies is discussed in subsequent chapters. Other topics included are: antibacterial vaccines adjuvants, host defence peptides, antibodies, within-host models, and diagnostics. A major reference volume on antibacterial research and how it impacts on public health worldwide, the book is essential reading for everyone working in antibacterial research and is a recommended volume for all microbiology libraries.