DanCARD
Danish Center for Antibiotic Research and Development is now established as an interdisciplinary collaboration between 11 research groups from various institutions and companies. The birth of the center was made possible by a six-year grant (DKK 31 mill) from the Danish Council for Strategic Research.
Antibiotic resistance is increasing with dramatic speed worldwide, and panresistant bacterial clones, i.e strains resistant towards all known antibiotics, are now being reported in all European countries including Denmark. Discovery of truly new antibiotics has markedly reduced during the last decades due to the low profit derived from investment in this area. As a consequence, today we are being outrun by antibiotic resistance without effective drugs in our armamentarium.
Through its research activities the new center will address this problem from several angles:
- preserve antibiotic efficacy of existing drugs by developing novel strategies to circumvent resistance mechanisms and by preventing development of resistance in the commensal flora
- develop new antibiotics, with focus on antimicrobial peptides, peptidomimetics, and plant-derived compounds
- enhance the activity of present antibiotics e.g. by improving targeted delivery using nanotechnology
- validate and exploit reliable models for assessment of clinical efficacy of newly developed antibacterial agents as well as optimize treatment protocols of the currently available drugs
Research groups from various university departments, institutions, and companies, participates in DanCARD:
- Department of Microbiological Surveillance and Research, Statens Serum Institut
- Department of Veterinary Disease Biology, LIFE, University of Copenhagen
- Department of Basic Sciences and Environment, LIFE, University of Copenhagen
- Department of Pharmaceutics and Analytical Chemistry, PHARMA, University of Copenhagen
- Department of Science, Systems and Models, Roskilde University
- Department of Biotechnology, Chemistry and Environmental Engineering, Aalborg University
- Center for Systems Microbiology, Technical University of Denmark
- Novozymes
- Aspiros
- Mycotec
- Novolytics
The Center management is situated at Statens Serum Institut with Prof. Niels Frimodt-Møller as coordinator.
New DanCARD website
More information will soon be available at a new DANCARD website (under construction).
Last revised 2 September 2010