Synthetic Biology Brings New Opportunity for Antibiotics Discovery

Dear Colleagues,

Though society is developing much more rapidly today than it did in the past, we are facing a complicated public health issue in the form of global drug shortages, and antimicrobials are unfortunately on that list. These shortages are caused by various issues, e.g., technological limitations, which have led to a drying up of the pipeline of antimicrobial development. Indeed, it has been decades since antibiotics with a completely novel mode of action were last delivered to the clinic. The limited availability of antibiotics, in addition to the rapid emergence of multidrug resistance, are putting us in a very dangerous position. Luckily, the advances of new technologies, especially biotechnologies, such as DNA sequencing, precise genome editing, system metabolic engineering, multiomics, synthetic biology, big data processing, and artificial intelligence are offering a great opportunity to develop better and efficient bioactive molecules, including next-generation antibiotics. Currently, various achievements and new discoveries from both academia and industry are taking place in the broad field of antibiotics, which reflects the fact that a new era is coming. As one of the most important driving forces, academia plays a critical role in drug discovery for a safer society, and thus, we would like to bring academia, industry, and clinic together in this Special Issue to report recent progress in antibiotics discovery.

Prof. Dr. Yaojun Tong
Prof. Dr. Zixin Deng
Prof. Dr. Linquan Bai
Guest Editors

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