High‑Throughput and AI‑Driven Antifungal Discovery

This research area leverages artificial intelligence, automation, and robotics to accelerate the discovery of new antifungal compounds from diverse microbiomes. It combines high-throughput screening with translational development to identify and advance promising antiinfective candidates into novel therapeutic solutions.

New and drug-resistant pathogens are spreading faster than new antimicrobial agents can be developed. The independent junior research group Robotic-Assisted Discovery of Antiinfectives (RDA) addresses this urgent challenge by discovering novel compounds active against human pathogenic fungi (e.g., Candida spp., Fusarium spp.) and bacteria (ESKAPE pathogens) using a state-of-the-art robotic platform, JenXplor. We are developing advanced image-based phenotypic screening approaches that enable the identification of broad-spectrum antifungal compounds while providing early insights into their mode of action. In addition, we leverage our screening data to iteratively train and refine machine learning–based predictive models, enabling the rational preselection of promising compounds prior to experimental validation. Our compounds of interest include natural product(-like) molecules and other small molecules. Furthermore, we are developing fully automated workflows to express and engineer/evolve existing biosynthetic natural product pathways in order to generate novel natural product variants at high throughput and to assess and optimize their biological activities.

We are looking for a postdoctoral researcher with experience and interest in chemoinformatics to strengthen our machine learning approaches, or for a candidate interested in the automated high-throughput evolution and engineering of bioactive natural products.

The Department Drug Design and Development (DDD) is currently being established at the Leibniz-HKI and is expected to start working in 2027. The department will carry out an ambitious research program for targeted, guideline-compliant development of new drug candidates and drive the development of antiinfectives.

Principal investigator: N. N.