From Molecule to Market: The Therapeutic and Commercial Promise of Aurodox

Antimicrobial resistance is making conventional antibiotics less effective. Aurodox offers an alternative by blocking the mechanisms bacteria use to cause infection. This PhD asks how Aurodox works inside bacterial cells, and what route to market such an anti-infective could realistically take, given weak business models, limited investment incentives and complex regulation.

This funded PhD studentship, led by Professor Andrew Roe with Dr Rebecca McHugh (School of Infection and Immunity), pairs laboratory microbiology with business strategy. The science strand uses bacterial genetics, gene-expression analysis, microscopy and structural methods to study how Aurodox is taken up and what it targets.

The business strand, supervised by DTIC, assesses therapeutic positioning, market drivers and barriers, regulatory pathways, intellectual property and funding models, combining into a strategy for crossing the ‘valley of death’ in anti-infective development.