Overview

An epidemic of multidrug-resistant (MDR) bacetrial infections plagues global and U.S. healthcare, and with few new antibiotics making it to market from a diminished pipeline, there is an unmet medical need for new therapeutics to treat drug-resistant infections. Furthermore, effective therapies are urgently needed to address ongoing public health and biosecurity concerns that high-threat select agent bacetria can be engineered to become resistant to currently available antibiotics. The goal of the Rutgers CETR is to help develop a new generation of antibiotics against known MDR bacetria. The CETR is a collaborative public-private partnership involving senior investigators at Rutgers University, Rockefeller University and Cubist Pharmaceuticals. It will serve to jump-start the discovery of novel antibiotics by joining together highly creative senior researchers and providing critical core resources to turn highly promising early concept molecules into potential therapeutics suitable for clinical evaluation. The CETR will examine well established and novel therapeutic targets, and it will facilitate target validation, chemical lead identification, structure-activity relationship analysis, pharmacokinetics and therapeutic efficacy in animal models.  The goal is to develop optimized chemical lead compounds that are suitable antibiotic candidates for preclinical evaluation. Critical factors for success include the strength of highly accomplished project and core leaders, a comprehensive and highly integrated infrastructure of support cores for lead compound optimization and validation, and access to the Rutgers Regional Biocontainment Laboratory (RBL), an NIH designated national research center for high-threat agents. Finally, the CETR leadership group is highly experienced in executing product-oriented translational research and a Scientific Advisory Committee comprised of veteran members of PhRMA and academia will guide them.

Projects

Project 1: Therapeutics for drug resistant-bacetria: Arylpropionyl-phloroglucinods
PI: Richard Ebright, Rutgers, the State University of NJ

Project 2: Broad spectrum Tricyclics GyrB, ParE inhibitors for antibacetrial application
PI: Aileen Rubio, Cubist Pharmaceuticals

Project 3: Process and pathway based discovery of novel anti-TB drugs
PI: David Alland, Rutgers, the State University of NJ

Project 4: Synthetic environmental-peptide libraries as a source of novel antibiotics
PI: Sean Brady, Rockefeller University

Project 5: Bayesian models to accelerate antibacetrial drug discovery
PI: Joel Freundlich, Rutgers, the State University of NJ

Cores

Core A: Administrative
PI: David Perlin, Rutgers, the State University of NJ

Core B: In vivo and in vitro pharmacokinetics
PI: Veronique Dartois, Rutgers, the State University of NJ

Core C: Animal Model
PI: David Perlin, Rutgers, the State University of NJ

Core D: Medicinal Chemistry
PI: Joel Freundlich, Rutgers, the State University of NJ

Core E: Structural refinement
PI: Min Lu, Rutgers, the State University of NJ

Core F: In vitro screening
PI: Connell/Russo, Rutgers, the State University of NJ

David Perlin PhD
Executive Director and Professor
Public Health Research Institute Center
New Jersey Medical School - Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
225 Warren Street
Newark, New Jersey 07103
Phone: (973) 854-3200
Fax: 973-854-3201
e-mail: perlinds@njms.rutgers.edu