Focus on Infectious Disease

Resistance to antimicrobials is a serious and growing problem in the treatment of infectious diseases.

In fact, for some bacterial pathogens, since there are no good antibiotic options, we are effectively returning to the pre-antibiotic era in the treatment of infections. This is happening at a time when there has been an explosion of new information about the basic biology of pathogens and how a host responds to infection. We're using this information to develop medicines and technologies that combat serious bacterial and viral infections.

At Genentech we're focused on exploring new antibacterial targets, antiviral targets and new mechanisms for killing pathogens, as well as new ways to deliver therapeutics to the site of infection that are both more efficient at pathogen elimination and less toxic to the host. In addition, our research efforts are focused on ways of combatting resistance mechanisms to existing drugs.

Key Publications

mBio, July 2017
Peptidoglycan Association of Murein Lipoprotein Is Required for KpsD-Dependent Group 2 Capsular Polysaccharide Expression and Serum Resistance in a Uropathogenic Escherichia coli Isolate
Trends in Molecular Medicine, February 2017
Antibody-antibotic conjugates: A novel therapeutic platform against bacterial infections
Nature Communications, January 2017
A broadly protective therapeutic antibody against influenza B virus with two mechanisms of action
mBio, September 2016
A putative bacterial ABC transporter circumvents the essentiality of signal peptidase
PLOS Pathogens, June 2016
Two escape mechanisms of influenza A virus to a broadly neutralizing stalk-binding antibody
Nature, November 2015
Novel antibody–antibiotic conjugate eliminates intracellular S. aureus