Our Department of Biosciences is making strides in understanding antibiotic resistance, boosted by a prestigious Leverhulme award.
Professor Jonathan Heddle joined our Department of Biosciences in 2023 with the support of a £4.8 million Leverhulme International Professorship award.
The Leverhulme award helped establish the Centre for Programmable Biological Matter at Durham University, which has already yielded results that could help us fight antibiotic-resistant infections.
Advances in nanomachinery
A thousand times smaller than the width of a hair, nanomachines are microscopic molecular robots that could help create new materials, electronics and more effective medical treatments.
Working together, they are responsible for defining features of cells such as self-repair and autonomous motion.
Professor Heddle's research aims to understand, design and build artificial and natural biological nanomachines, which could have significant applications in medicine.
A new discovery
In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Prof Heddle and a team of bioscientists revealed a new discovery that may pave the way for designing advanced antibiotics.
In partnership with Jagiellonian University (Poland), and the John Innes Centre, our researchers outlined how a bacterial enzyme called DNA gyrase twists and stabilises DNA.
Found in all bacteria but absent in humans, DNA gyrase plays a crucial role in organising bacterial DNA, making it an ideal antibiotic target.
Fighting antibacterial resistance
DNA gyrase is already targeted by fluoroquinolone antibiotics, which effectively kills bacteria. However, resistance to these drugs has become a widespread problem.
With this clearer understanding of gyrase's structure and function, researchers can develop new antibiotics that may avoid current resistance mechanisms.
