The Pires Lab has recently been granted an award from the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation.
The two-year long award will fund an upcoming collaboration between the Pires Lab and Cornell
University, Harvard University, and McMaster University.
Led by Professor Marcos Pires, the laboratory is conducting research to combat multidrug-
resistant (MDR) bacterial infections. Highly resistant to nearly all available antibiotics, MDRs
present a significant challenge to global healthcare systems.
According to the Lab’s research summary, “A primary difficulty in treating infections, especially
those involving diderm bacteria, is the unique outer membrane of the pathogens, which acts as
a formidable barrier, preventing many antibiotics from reaching their intracellular targets.
Despite the urgent need for new antibiotics and adjuvants that can penetrate this barrier, our
knowledge of the molecular mechanisms controlling antibiotic accumulation in bacteria remains
limited.”
With the award, the Lab and their collaborators hope to “bridge this gap of knowledge in the field
of antimicrobials by developing and applying innovative high-throughput screening platforms
designed to measure the accumulation of small molecules with subcellular resolution.”
The Bill & Melinda Gates foundation was founded in 2000 by Bill and Melinda Gates. It is
reported to be the third-largest charitable foundation in the world. According to their website, the
foundation aims to “reduce inequities in health by developing new tools and strategies to reduce
the burden of infectious disease and the leading causes of child mortality in developing
countries.”
Congratulations to Professor Pires and the Pires Lab on this outstanding achievement.