Amanda Miguel
Bioengineering
Bio-X Honorary Fellow 2013/2014
Profs. Russ Altman (Bioengineering) and KC Huang (Bioengineering)

The recent increase in antibiotic resistance in disease-causing bacteria calls for new approaches to drug target selection and drug development. FtsZ, a bacterial cytoskeletal protein critical in cell division, is a powerful target for potential inhibition. Recently crystallized structures of FtsZ bound to a weak inhibitor provide an opportunity for using structure-based computational tools to design new FtsZ inhibitors. By analyzing FtsZ across various bacterial species and across time, we can better understand the molecular basis of Ftsz interaction with inhibitors. We can then develop and apply computational tools for drug repurposing or fragment-based drug design to later pursue with experimental studies.