CURALIBERA
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Antibiotic resistance: refilling an empty pipeline

Mining natural products and overlooked chemistry for antibacterials that resistant strains have never met.

In everyday words

Bacteria are learning to survive the drugs we depend on, and drug companies have mostly stopped inventing new ones. We are hunting for germ-killing compounds nobody has tried — including from soil, where most of today's antibiotics originally came from — and for ways to make old antibiotics work again.

Open questions

  • Which uncultured soil organisms yield novel antibacterial scaffolds?
  • Can resistance-breaking adjuvants restore old antibiotics?

Current leads

  • Soil actinomycete rescreening

    Natural source

    Community sampling protocol published; replications in progress.

    Plainly: Most antibiotics in your pharmacy began as chemicals made by soil bacteria — and most soil bacteria have never been tested. Anyone can collect a sample and post the result.

  • Efflux-pump inhibitor adjuvants

    Man-made

    Two candidates queued for partner assessment.

    Plainly: Some germs survive antibiotics by pumping the drug back out. A second drug that jams that pump could make an old antibiotic work again.

Safety note

Sampling protocols are environmental only. No contributor is asked to handle pathogens.