By the time she applied for graduate school, Soumaya Zlitni was a straight A-plus student who spoke three languages and had published in one of the most
Now, at age 27, the PhD candidate in the Department of Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences at McMaster University has been named one of the most promising young minds in the country.
Antibiotic resistance has been a significant problem for hospitals and health-care facilities for more than a decade. But despite the need for new treatment options, there have been only two new classes of antibiotics developed in the last 40 years.
Now a promising discovery by McMaster University researchers has revealed an ideal starting point to develop new interventions for resistant infections.
"McMaster is uniquely positioned for this discovery platform, and this was the missing ingredient - we have one of the best screening/robotic platforms, chemical libraries and expertise in professors Eric Brown and Gerry Wright, who have discovered molecules to combat infectious disease. Now we can combine it all. This team now aims to kill cancer."
Dr. Andrew Macpherson, project leader for the Systems Biology Centre, and Dr. Stephen Collins, group leader, have been awarded CFI funding to support their research. Below is Dr. Gerry Wright, professor and chair, biochemistry and biomedical sciences and Jamal Deen, professor of electrical and computer engineering. File photos.
Their science is small. Their ideas are big. And their rewards are huge. The Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) announced yesterday that McMaster University was awarded more than $13.5 million to support three projects that will provide dozens of McMaster researchers and their research teams access to cutting-edge equipment and facilities to continue McMaster's tradition of world-class research.
It's a new age in drug discovery. So says professor of biochemistry Eric Brown, who is among a new breed of researchers straddling the borders of microbiology, genetics and chemistry to develop new therapies intended to counter the growing threat of bacterial drug resistance to existing antibiotics.
McMaster has received four new Canada Research Chairs (CRC) and about $2.5 million from the Canada Foundation for Innovation for infrastructure funding for CRC award winners.
This third round of Canada Research Chairs awards brings the University's total to 26.
The inaugural symposium of McMaster's Antimicrobial Research Centre (ARC) will bring together international leaders in antibiotics and related research fields to discuss their latest findings in the war against "superbugs" or antibiotic-resistant pathogens.
