Keynote Lecture “Challenges and opportunities in anti-infective discovery from microbial natural products”

Microbial natural products (NPs) are one of the most prolific sources for the discovery of novel anti-infective drugs to respond to unmet needs in infectious diseases. NPs present a unique chemical space and architectural complexity, and their potency and selectivity is the result of an extended evolutionary selection to create biologically active molecules with the required properties to interact and potentially inhibit microbial and parasite targets. NPs continue to play today a key role in the discovery of new molecules to fill the chemotherapeutic gap and in the last years much attention has been given to less explored and untapped rich sources of new microbial chemical diversity. Microbial genome mining and cutting edge metabolomic approaches are essential tools in the modern NPs drug discovery paradigm, opening new opportunities to identify novel classes of compounds. New integrated NPs discovery approaches involving genome-driven and cultured-based strategies combined to high throughput phenotypic screening platforms are playing a key role in the identification of new molecules to be developed and refill the antibiotic pipeline. MEDINA is a research organization focused on the discovery of novel bioactive NPs with one of the richest and most diverse NPs collections that are at the origin of our collaborative drug discovery research programs. As a result of these screening programs integrating different approaches to support the discovery and development of novel NPs as potential new leads for drug development, we have identified different novel families of molecules with interesting new chemistry and biological activities that will be discussed in the context of current discovery efforts. Publication History Article published online: 12 December 2022 © 2022. Thieme. All rights reserved. Georg Thieme Verlag KG Rüdigerstraße 14, 70469 Stuttgart, Germany