MEDINA Presented Novel Family of Natural Products Antibiotics with Broad Spectrum Against Gram-Negative Pathogens at ICAAC 2013

Fundación MEDINA and Cubist Pharmaceuticals presented research data at ICAAC 2013 on a novel family of natural products antibiotics addressing the emerging threat from Gram-negative pathogens.

Together scientists from Fundación MEDINA and Cubist Pharmaceuticals have discovered a new family of natural molecules that could serve as a scaffold to build next-generations antibiotics. These newly discovered molecules have unprecedented chemical structures and are completely different than antibiotics that have been or are currently being used by doctors. The results from this study were presented in September as a Poster (F1215), at ICCAC 53rd, Denver, Colorado. The data show that these compounds have specific in vitro activity against Gram-negative bacteria such as A. baumannii, P. aeruginosa and E. coli, identified as "superbugs" given their high resistance levels to current antibiotics in the clinic.

This discovery could also mean that many new useful antibiotics remain to be discovered in nature and could be developed to fight against human disease and the emergence of bacterial resistance and super bugs, an increasing public health threat.

This new family of compounds was identified from a crude fermentation extract produced by a filamentous fungus. These results also show that these new molecules are believed to work by interfering with the process by which bacteria build their cells wall.

The new family of molecules was discovered by scientists from Fundacion MEDINA of Granada, Spain, and Cubist Pharmaceuticals Inc. of Lexington, MA, USA, from a joint effort targeted at screening the microbial natural product libraries of Fundación MEDINA looking for new antibiotics to combat infectious diseases.