Objective

Antimicrobial resistance has developed into one of the most dangerous global issues, predicted to cause 10 million deaths a year by 2050. New medicines are urgently needed but drug discovery programmes have been largely abandoned due to low novel compound discovery rates. This is partially a result of the repetitive growth conditions used in the lab, which does not allow for the full range of natural environmental triggers that would usually stimulate bioactive compound production. While this has resulted in a slow drug discovery pipeline, it also means the potential for new compounds from already known species is still high - if grown under the right conditions. Culture collections such as NCIMB hold species isolated from around the world, including around 600 Streptomyces strains from locations such as a bee's intestines, the Mariana Trench and Atacama Desert. Sets of soil, water and life-associated Streptomyces from the collection will be grown under a range of nutritional and stress conditions to elicit the otherwise silent compounds. Preliminary results showed different morphologies and pigmentation from each of the proposed methods. More complete metabolite profiles will be built up for each species, creating polarity based chemical libraries with information on production of each compound, with eventual screening against gram negative pathogens.