An interdisciplinary approach to structural biology, using leading-edge technology.
Highlighted Research Projects
Structure-Guided Antimicrobial Discovery and Delivery
- ASTRID is committed to spearheading high-quality structural biology research, with the aim of this work ultimately being instrumental in the development of novel therapeutics.
- Through internationally leading structural biology, AI-driven computational modelling, AI-driven virtual deep docking of all available chemical space, high-throughput drug screening, cellular microbiology, and preclinical therapeutic development platforms, ASTRID’s instrumentation and research network are well-suited to addressing this global issue.
- We offer instrumentation relevant to cryo-EM, cryo-ET, Focused ion beam milling SEM, cryo-CLEM, X-ray crystallography, mass spectrometry and NMR workflows.
Vaccine Development Targeting Infectious Disease
- ASTRID’s collaborations include pioneering researchers at the forefront of mRNA vaccine development and lipid nanoparticle drug delivery technology, including those at the helm of the recent CBRF initiative, AVENGER.
- Our state-of-the-art microscopes in the High-Resolution Macromolecular Cryo-EM Facility have revealed exciting insights into LNP technology and will be applied in new research opportunities ahead.
Bacterial & Viral Ultrastructures
- Using Cryo-Electron Tomography and Focused Ion Beam Milling, ASTRID investigators are visualizing high-resolution, three-dimensional views of cellular architecture, resolving structural features of bacterial and viral pathogens in the cellular context.
- These in situ imaging approaches are advancing our understanding of pathogen structure, organization, and infection-associated dynamics in their native environments.
Antibiotic Resistance mechanisms & inhibitors
- With the global burden of antibiotic resistance on the rise, ASTRID is poised to tackle this generational problem with its expertise from an interdisciplinary team in structure-guided drug discovery targeting diverse molecular mechanisms from bacterial, viral, and fungal pathogens, coupled with ongoing sequence surveillance, bioinformatics, and clinical oversight for arising drug-resistant strains.
host-pathogen interfaces
- Multidisciplinary structural approaches, including cryo-EM and cryo-ET, are used to uncover how pathogens interact with and manipulate host cells. These studies reveal molecular strategies for immune evasion, intracellular survival, and remodeling of host environments.
chemical biology
- ASTRID investigators use structural biology to investigate the biosynthetic machinery behind creation of natural product antibiotics, revealing the underlying mechanisms. These insights support the engineering of new biosynthetic pathways for development of novel antimicrobials.
