The ongoing prevalence of drug-resistant bacterial infections represents a challenging and eminent health issue facing society today. Exacerbated by the diminishing number of novel and effective antibiotics, this precarious situation has since prompted unremitting efforts for developing alternative compounds that not only show high efficacy toward pathogenic microbes, but also exhibit reduced propensity toward resistance development. For example, with the increased prevalence of antibiotic resistant infections, there is an urgent need for innovative antimicrobial treatments. One such area being actively explored is the use of self-assembling cationic polymers. This relatively new class of materials was inspired by biologically pervasive cationic host defense peptides. We have developed a class of cationic polymers that assemble into nanostructures that are biodegradable, biocompatible and have broad-spectrum antimicrobial activity. When designing these materials, the balance between charge and hydrophobicity significantly affects the antimicrobial activity and selectivity toward microbes over mammalian cells. Furthermore, where the charge and hydrophobicity is located on the molecules has also proven to be significant. This talk will focus on the design features to optimize selectivity versus activity.

Broad-spectrum, biodegradable macromolecular antimicrobials with high selectivity

2019 Spring National Meeting

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