Antibacterial drug discovery and structure-based design

Bacterial resistance continues to develop and pose a significant threat, both in hospitals and, more recently, in the community. A focus on other therapeutic areas by the larger pharmaceutical companies has left a shortfall in the pipeline of novel antibacterials. Recently, many new structures have been studied by structure–genomics initiatives, delivering a wealth of targets to consider. Using the tools of structure-based design, antibacterial discovery must exploit these targets to accelerate the process of drug discovery.