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The Van Hoek Lab Publishes Paper in the journal Antibiotics

The van Hoek lab recently published a paper describing the computational design of new antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) with activity against multi-drug resistant (MDR) Acinetobacter baumannii.

Fahad Alsaab, a current PhD student in Biosciences (MID concentration) and Shravani Bobde (a graduate of the same program) worked together to design and test a set of new peptides called HRZN, as in “horizon”, designed to be effective against MDR A. baumannii. The most active peptide killed these wound-infecting bacteria with a MIC of 4 ug/ml. Additional authors include Scott N. Dean, another former member of the van Hoek Lab and graduate of the PhD Biosciences program at GMU and Gabriel Ascoli, a summer ASSIP student who worked with Fahad. The paper was published in the journal Antibiotics (IF 4.8).  

This picture shows a field-emission scanning electron microscopy image of MDR A. baumannii AB5075 cells treated with HRZN-15 peptide.  Blebs can be seen on the bacterial membrane.

Hoek Paper

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