Researchers from the University of Waterloo have developed a new technology that can hold an entire course of antibiotics in one tiny dose and deliver on demand just the right amount of medication that a particular patient needs to fight an infection. 

The team from the School of Pharmacy at Waterloo found that this personalized nanomedicine, which attacks bacteria at the molecular level, results in patients taking the exact amount required to fight the infection while reducing the risk of antibiotic resistance. With the misuse and overuse of antibiotics, bacteria strains develop a tolerance, resulting in antimicrobial resistance (AMR), a global threat.

This new technology consists of fatty compounds invisible to the eye that are tailored to only release a drug in the presence of toxins produced by specific types of bacteria.

In the past, the medical research community has attempted to defeat antibiotic-resistant bacteria by developing new antibiotics. This approach is expensive and can take decades to accomplish. Wu is taking a different approach. By using a targeted system, he is delivering the antibiotics directly to the bacteria, thus allowing them to have a greater impact on the pathogen.

When bacteria enter the body, they use a combination of strong and weak ligand connections to attach to a cell membrane and infect the cell. Ligands, which are molecular connections that exist on both the bacteria and cell membrane, allow the two cells to stick to each other by using unique molecular structures. Wu and his collaborators are exploiting this characteristic of bacteria by using this binding method to efficiently deliver antibiotics directly to the bacteria.

Antibiotic-siderophore conjugation is a promising strategy for targeted antibiotic delivery at the site of action, however, this approach is associated with certain limitations. For non-β-lactam antibiotic-siderophore conjugates, penetration across the inner bacterial membrane might be challenging, as a suitable linker is required for siderophore–antibiotic conjugates but difficult to find.