Abstract: With the increase of life expectancy, the risk of infections related to medical devices and/or chronic wounds typical of the elderly, is raising dramatically. Current treatment and prophylaxis of medical device-associated infections are based on systemic and/or local administration of classical antibiotics, and medical device removal in the case of confirmed persistent infection; this is a heavy burden, especially because bacterial resistance to current antibiotics is now widespread [1]. The scenario is similar for chronically infected wounds, particularly those more common to the elderly or bedridden, like venous leg ulcers, pressure ulcers or diabetic foot ulcers [2]. These are major causes for concern, as the decline in the effectiveness of current antibiotic therapies leads to poor prognosis when persistent infection is installed, especially for people with age-aggravated conditions like immune system deficiency, diabetes, venous insufficiency, or osteoarticular impairment, among others. The search for new strategies has been an active field of research for the past decades, but is now becoming a matter of urgency, due to the increasing prevalence of multi-drug resistant pathogens. Antimicrobial peptides (AMP) are amongst the most promising agents to tackle this terrible menace in the post-antibiotic era [3,4]. This talk will address our recent efforts in this regard, with a particular focus on use of click chemistry approaches to develop new peptide-based constructs, from AMP-grafted antibacterial chitosan coatings to enzymatically stable antimicrobial peptide-ionic liquid conjugates with potent antimicrobial activity.

Biography: Paula A. C. Gomes (http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6018-4724; https://www.fc.up.pt/pessoas/pgomes/) is an Associate Professor, with Habilitation in Chemistry, at the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry of the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Porto (FCUP), Portugal. She graduated in Chemistry at the same University, in 1993, where she also carried out her M.Sc. in Chemistry, on the topic of dipeptide-based prodrugs of classical sulfonamide antibiotics. She then pursued her Ph.D. in Chemistry at the University of Barcelona (1997–2000), on the topics of solid phase peptide synthesis and use of surface plasmon resonance sensors for the study of peptide antigens–antibody interactions, mentored by Professor David Andreu.

Paula now leads “ORCHIDS”, a Bioorganic Chemistry-oriented research group, where her main research goals include (i) drug rescuing, repurposing and repositioning, mainly applied to antimalarial agents, (ii) antimicrobial peptides, (iii) peptide-based drug delivery strategies, and (iv) peptide-grafted biomaterials. She is also the coordinator of “POP-UP”, the peptide synthesis core facility set up at FCUP, and the first of its kind in Portugal.

Paula has co-authored 170 papers in internationally indexed scientific journals, with a h-index of 33, according to the SCOPUS database (May 2021). Paula has been also the Principal or Co-Principal Investigator of 11 interdisciplinary projects funded through competitive research funding calls, and has mentored 11 PhD and 32 MSc students, from 2002 to the present date.

Currently, Paula is one of the Chairpersons of the Chemistry in Life Sciences Division of the Portuguese Chemistry Society (SPQ), the Secretary of the European Peptide Society (EPS), and an Associate Member of Division VII – Chemistry and Human Health, of the International Union for Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC).