Increased emergence of drug-resistant bacteria is a serious health problem and finding and optimizing novel antibiotics that do not cause development of resistance is an urgent task. The purpose of my PhD project is to determine the spectrum and activity of a novel type of peptidomimics.

These artificial antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) have been chemically synthesized by modifying existing peptide sequences thereby enhancing their structural diversity. Novel peptidomimics exhibit considerable antibacterial activity similar to natural AMPS but are resistant to proteolytic degradation while being non-haemolytic and non-toxic.

I work with human pathogenic bacteria from food-borne and nosocomial sources as well as multi-resistant strains. The AMPs could potentially in the future be a safe alternative to conventional antibiotics