More and more bacteria are becoming resistant to antibiotics. As a result, infections are becoming increasingly difficult to treat—a development that poses major challenges for modern medicine. That is why new approaches are urgently needed to effectively combat dangerous pathogens. This is precisely where the SynThera research project comes in. The goal is to use synthetic biology to develop beneficial microorganisms that can recognize and combat disease-causing, antibiotic-resistant bacteria directly at the site of infection. At the same time, existing preventive treatment strategies are to be improved and better tailored to individual patients. SynThera thus has the potential to fundamentally transform the treatment of bacterial infections and open up new possibilities in the fight against multidrug-resistant pathogens. The project is funded by the Carl Zeiss Foundation through its “Breakthroughs” grant program over a period of five years. A total of ten research groups from Friedrich Schiller University Jena and the Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology (Leibniz-HKI) are collaborating to develop these new therapeutic approaches.
