Antibiotic drug resistance has reached crisis proportions, principally because modern industrial drug discovery efforts have failed to provide new antibiotics. The reasons for failure are manifold, however, a lack of understanding of the basic biology has played a large part. Where modern drug discovery emphasizes reductionist approaches, there is a profound risk of failure if the complexity of the target, indeed the system, is underestimated.  

Brown lab researchers are investigating enigmatic processes that are essential for the survival of bacterial pathogens and are working to understand these processes in the context of complex cell systems.  The Brown research group is also developing creative chemical-biology platforms to enable the discovery and characterization of new chemical probes with utility as tool compounds in exploring complex biology.  Efforts to date have resulted in exciting new knowledge, platforms, chemical probes and lead compounds for antibacterial research.  Research in the Brown lab falls into three broad categories of investigation in bacteria: Chemical Genomics, Cell Envelope, and Nutrient Stress.