The ABX Winter 2020 Meeting

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 The second ABX meeting was held over Zoom on the 16th December 2020.

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Following the success of the first ABX meeting in July 2019, we held a second meeting this winter, eager to provide a platform for sharing ongoing efforts in antibiotic discovery, despite the current COVID-19 restrictions.

To do this in a manner that ensured the safety of the members, this was a virtual meeting.

We were delighted with the turnout of over 80 participants! The range of topics and calibre of speakers was impressive and diverse, highlighting the scope of collaborative potential within the world of antibiotic discovery in the UK, and beyond.

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Presentations

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The presentations from the meeting are available to view below. For more information on each speaker, click on the titles in the programme to go to the YouTube link. The flash talks provide researchers with an opportunity to briefly showcase their work. If you would like to contribute a flash talk, please email antibioticdiscovery@plymouth.ac.uk.

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ABX Winter Meeting Programme

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Wednesday 16th December 2020

 

10:00 - 10:10

Introduction

Professor Mat Upton

Professor of Medical Microbiology – University of Plymouth

 

10:10 - 10:30

The Global Antibiotic Research and Development Partnership (GARDP) – filling gaps that others do not

Professor Laura Piddock

Director of Scientific Affairs – Global Antibiotic Research and Development Partnership (GARDP)

Professor of Microbiology –  University of Birmingham

 

10:30 - 10:50

Citizen Science Drug Discovery; updates from Swab and Send

Dr Adam Roberts

Reader, Antimicrobial Chemotherapy and Resistance – Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine

 

10:50 - 11:00

Azetidines kill Mycobacterium tuberculosis without detectable resistance by blocking mycolate biosynthesis

Dr Luke Alderwick

Lecturer in Molecular Microbiology – University of Birmingham

 

11:00 - 11:10

Investigating late stage functionalisation of a cyclic peptide antibiotic

Gustavo Perez Ortiz

Post-Doctoral Researcher – King's College London

 

11:10 - 11:20

Flash talks:

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The prospect of repurposing immunomodulatory drugs for adjunctive chemotherapy against tuberculosis (TB)

Professor Sanjib Bhakta

Professor of Molecular Microbiology and Chemistry - Birkbeck, University of London

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DNA topoisomerases as targets for antibacterial chemotherapy

Professor Tony Maxwell

Group Leader - John Innes Centre

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Cell-Free Biosynthesis

Dr Simon Moore

Lecturer in Molecular Biosciences - University of Kent

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11:20 - 11:30

Break

 

11:30 - 11:45

An Ocean of Microbial Chemistry - 'Omics Informed Antibiotic Discovery

Dr Katherine Duncan

Chancellor’s Fellow and Lecturer in Marine Microbial Chemistry - University of Strathclyde

 

11:45 - 12:00

Antimicrobial agents from marine and desert bacteria

Professor Marcel Jaspars

Professor of Chemistry - University of Aberdeen

 

12:00 - 12:10

Genomic characterisation of anti-pseudomonad bioactivity from hyper-arid Micromonospora species

David Mark

PhD Student – University of Strathclyde

 

12:10 - 12:20

Antibiotic resistance in Antarctica: no longer a pristine ecosystem?

Kudzai Hwengwere

Masters Student – Anglia Ruskin University

 

12:20 - 12:30

Development of a new multi-stress in vitro model of latent TB leads to the discovery of a novel enzyme and it's corresponding inhibitor

Savannah Gibson

PhD Student – Aston University

 

12:30 - 12:40

Characterisation of a potent, non-toxic antimicrobial compound with potential antimycobacterial activity from a common, edible plant

Dr Martin Goldberg

Lecturer in Clinical Microbiology – Birmingham City University

 

12:40 - 12:50

Flash talks:

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Recombinant antibody based therapeutic strategies for addressing drug resistance in bacteria and fungi

Dr Soumya Palliyil

Research Fellow - University of Aberdeen

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Building better libraries for drug discovery from the deep-sea sponge microbiome

Sam Williams

PhD Student - University of Bristol

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Investigation into prevalence of multi-drug resistant zoonotic pathogens from wild birds faeces collected from sites in East Anglia

Kruti Gupta

PhD Student - Anglia Ruskin University

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12:50 - 13:00

Break

 

13:00 - 13:10

Neglected MATE efflux pumps in Campylobacter

Dr Thamarai Janganan

Lecturer in Microbiology and Biotechnology – University of Bedfordshire

 

13:10 - 13:20

Novel Ruthenium Antimicrobial Compounds - an Alternative to Traditional Antibiotics

Kirsty Smitten

PhD Student – University of Sheffield

 

13:20 - 13:30

Building a whole cell computational model of E.coli to identify viable drug targets and discover new biology

Ajay Mistry

Founder/CEO – Oppilotech

 

13:30 - 13:40

High-throughput nanoscale crystallisation of bioactive natural products for X-ray crystallography

Dr Michael Hall

Senior Lecturer in Organic and Biological Chemistry – Newcastle University

 

13:40 - 13:50

Real time monitoring of peptidoglycan synthesis by membrane-reconstituted penicillin binding proteins

Victor Hernandez-Rocamora

Research Associate – Newcastle University

 

13:50 - 14:00

Perturbed dynamics underlie inhibition and altered efflux of a multidrug resistance pump

Dr Eamonn Reading

Research Fellow – King's College London

 

14:00 - 14:10

Flash talks:

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Polymers responsive to microbes

Professor Stephen Rimmer

Professor of Chemistry - University of Bradford

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Cytochrome bd as an antimicrobial target

Calum Webster

PhD student - University of Kent

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Assembly and selectivity of tripartite efflux systems

Dr Vassiliy Bavro

Reader - University of Essex

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14:10 - 14:20

Winner Announcement of Best Presentation from Post Graduates/ Early Career Researcher talks, Summary and Finish

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