The increasing antibiotic resistance of pathogenic bacteria requires promptly resolutions for the development of alternative antimicrobial therapies. Possible approaches include the development of novel specific formulations including antimicrobial peptides as well as broad-spectrum antibiotics.

Antimicrobial peptides, which have been isolated from many bacteria, fungi and plants, are an important component of the natural defenses of most living organisms. The isolated peptides are very heterogeneous in length, sequence and structure, but most of them are small, cationic and amphipathic. These peptides exhibit broad-spectrum activity against Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria, fungi and viruses. A wide variety of human proteins and peptides also has antimicrobial activity and plays important roles in innate immunity. They have been considered for potential use in the medicinal therapy. Despite of this there is rather limited clinical applications of antimicrobial peptides and a number questions without answers in the scientific area from one side and the society expectation about new drugs against infection diseases from the other hand.

Aims and Scope:

1. Antimicrobial peptides – structure, production, purification and biological activities.
2. Analytical characterization of antimicrobial peptide molecules in different matrices. Application of chromatographic and spectral methods.
3. Peptide antibiotics – specific aspects in producing of formulations and quality control.
4. Antimicrobial peptides as potential new agents against predominated drug-resistance bacteria.
5. Naturally occurring peptides – isolation and characterization.