SpheroBiotics: antibiotics from nature

Increasing drug resistance makes the search for new antibiotic substances essential. ETH Pioneer Fellows and co-founders of SpheroBiotics Dr. Irene Wüthrich and Dr. Steven Schmitt have developed a technology to find new microorganisms in nature that produce antibiotics.  

Why do we need new antibiotics?
Without antibiotics to cure bacterial infections, our modern medicine would not exist. Unfortunately, resistance to antibiotics has increased significantly and a growing number of people worldwide die of diseases that were well treatable up to now. We are sitting on a ticking time bomb: If we do nothing, antibiotic resistance will cause more deaths by 2050 than cancer does today.

How do you proceed, and where do you find the active substances?
Most of today’s antibiotics originate in nature but it is becoming increasingly more difficult to discover truly new molecules. SpheroBiotics picks up where classic research into natural substances has reached its limits. Today we know that all microorganisms in nature live in complex communities (microbiomes). Without this community, most cannot survive and thus cannot be examined. Our technology uses microscopic droplets (microspheres) which act like small laboratories. In these spheres we reproduce natural microbiomes and examine them for valuable substances. The small size enables an unprecedented speed and allows us to work in places that have been unreachable for previous technologies: directly on-site in nature. We use this to investigate microbial communities in different environments – from soil to human beings.

Symbolic illustration of SpheroBiotics
Symbolic illustration of the SpheroBiotics technology: The red beads represent the tiny microsphere laboratories in the soil. (Image source: SpheroBiotics)

What are the benefits?
Our technology enables us to find new classes of substances. Most microorganisms on earth are still undiscovered (up to 99%) – a huge potential that has not yet been fully exploited. And there is the speed: With classic methods, about 10,000 microbial strains per year can be examined for antibiotics production. We are able to test more than a million within a few days. With such a throughput, we are a thousand times faster, and can find the rare producers while excluding already known substances.
Our technology is actually suitable for various other areas of application such as biological pest control, natural food preservation or microbiome therapy (i.e. influencing human bacterial flora to prevent or cure diseases, which will add a new dimension to medicine in the future).

Microsphere laboratory
The microsphere laboratory in action: discovery of new antibiotics. (Image source: SpheroBiotics)

What are your goals for 2019?
We would like to secure financing and establish SpheroBiotics as a company in the second half of 2019. Another priority is to find advisory board members with experience in the pharmaceutical and biotech industry. After initial talks with industry partners on collaboration projects, we would like to initiate a first project. Furthermore, we have several patent applications in the pipeline for 2019.

Dr. Irene Wüthrich (left) and Dr. Steven Schmitt (right)
Dr. Irene Wüthrich (left) and Dr. Steven Schmitt (right). (Image source: SpheroBiotics)

Contact / Links:

Website SpheroBiotics: external pagewww.spherobiotics.com/

Dr. Irene Wüthrich: external pageLinkedin

Dr. Steven Schmitt: external pageLinkedin

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