ERC Grant Empowers Breakthrough Antibiotic Research by Markus Weingarth
Utrecht University biochemist Markus Weingarth has received a prestigious €150,000 ERC Proof of Concept Grant to accelerate his fight against antimicrobial resistance. The STAR project, led by Weingarth, focuses on enhancing solid-state NMR techniques to reveal in unprecedented molecular detail how antibiotics attack bacterial membranes. This approach relies on custom-made, isotope-labeled lipids - crucial components that are not commercially available and previously difficult to produce. Thanks to the grant, Weingarth’s team can now scale up lipid production, boosting the sensitivity of their experiments and paving the way for safer, more effective antibiotics. Beyond drug development, these lipid tools may impact research into disease-related proteins and the function of lipid nanoparticles in mRNA vaccines, potentially benefiting scientists worldwide.