Novel antibiotic earns student inventor top prize

By taking a novel approach to fighting bacterial infections, graduate student Emilie Porter has helped pioneer a promising new antibiotic technology – and gained national attention as an inventor.

Her innovative approach to fighting germs, which depends on synthetic peptides or protein fragments that are the natural enemies of pathogenic microbes, has helped Porter take top honors — and a $20,000 prize — in the Collegiate Inventors Competition.

Porter was cited this month in the competition sponsored by the National Inventors Hall of Fame in Akron, Ohio.

Working with chemistry professor Samuel Gellman and pharmacology professor Bernard Weisblum, Porter has helped zero in on a chink in the armor of antibiotic-resistant bacteria by creating a synthetic molecule that mimics the bacteria-fighting peptides found in nature.

Her team designed a molecule that takes on the antibacterial function of certain natural peptides, such as those found on the skin of frogs and which are a first line of defense for the animal against harmful bacteria.