School of Pharmacy Researcher Awarded Rathmann Biotechnology Fellowship

Grant will aid search for a new class of antibiotics

By Becky Ceraul
July 22, 2008

With the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria making news headlines around the world, increasing importance is being placed on the development of new medications that can effectively battle these deadly pathogens.

Angela Wilks, PhD, a professor of pharmaceutical sciences at the School of Pharmacy, has for the last several years been working diligently in the lab to develop a new class of antibiotics that won’t kill bacteria but will lessen their virulence enough to render them harmless. And now, with support from the Rathmann Family Foundation, Wilks will be able to take her research out of the Petri dish and into a small animal model, one step closer to market.

Wilks was unanimously selected out of 19 applicants to receive the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) Rathmann Biotechnology Fellowship. The $50,000 one year fellowship aims to accelerate the bench to bedside development of a technology discovered at the university by providing funds for translational biotechnology research conducted with a post-doctoral fellow. The award will fund Wilks’ studies to test the toxicity and efficacy of a novel class of antimicrobials that restrict the bacterial pathogens’ ability to obtain iron, which is essential for their survival and virulence.

“Traditional antibiotics target functions in the cell that are essential for survival such as making proteins or DNA,” says Wilks. “Our approach is to target iron, which isn’t essential for the bacteria to live but is necessary for them to be harmful. Our premise is that by removing the bacteria’s ability to get iron from the host, their virulence will be reduced and a potential antibiotic target will be identified. We are now designing a compound that will block receptors and enzyme that are required to help the bacteria use the host’s heme (the pigment found in the red blood cell) to get that iron – essentially a new class of antibiotics.”

Wilks has been targeting a pathogen called Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which is especially dangerous to hospitalized patients and those with cystic fibrosis. “We feel that the therapy we are developing will be very useful to people with pseudomonal infections and particularly those with cystic fibrosis,” she says. “The work that we have done already in a simple worm intestinal infection model shows that the compounds we are using clears this type of infection.”

With the Rathmann Fellowship, Wilks will be able to support post-doctoral fellow Scott Fisher, PhD, who will perform additional work with the compounds, which were identified by colleagues at the School of Pharmacy’s Computer-Aided Drug Design Center. Fisher will be looking at toxicity, how the drug is distributed in the body and their specific impact in a cystic fibrosis infection model.

“The Rathmann Biotechnology Fellowship provides an opportunity to further develop a technology that has shown real promise, support the work and training of a junior scientist and provide preliminary data that could attract additional funding from biotechnology companies,” says Wilks.

“We are very grateful to Richard Rathmann and the Rathmann Family Foundation for creating the Fellowship,” says James Hughes, vice president for research and development at UMB. “Drs. Wilks and Fisher make a great team that is very focused on bringing this promising research to the clinic. They will set a wonderful standard for future Rathmann Fellowships.”