Emerging Targets in Antibacterial and Antifungal Chemotherapy

Emerging Targets in Antibacterial and Antifungal Chemotherapy offers constructive ideas to researchers that could lead to the discovery of entirely new classes of drugs. The authors emphasize new topics rather than review work on known antibacterials and antifungals, and identify new targets--either the rate-limiting component of a biochemical pathway or a component of the pathway that is susceptible to a ``screening'' or ``rational drug design'' approach. Each chapter reviews the biochemical pathway and its place in the cellular scheme in order to place the target in perspective. The authors, a mixture of academic researchers and drug-discovery investigators in pharmaceutical companies, also extend these theoretical concerns into practical applications and suggest useful screening methodologies. The importance of this subject area is demonstrated by the increasing number of papers in the literature that point to potential targets and screening methodologies for new antibacterials. This book also deals with antifungals, investigating the inherent limitations in existing antifungals (many of which are extremely toxic or have only limited efficacy), and pointing to major developments in the discovery of novel antifungals. Emerging Targets in Antibacterial and Antifungal Chemotherapy will be of interest to professional microbiologists, biochemists, and cell biologists in both academic and industrial laboratories.