Summary

Magic Bullet Gels is a collaborative research project funded through the MAPS programme of the Second Swiss Contribution, an initiative that strengthens scientific partnerships between Switzerland and researchers in EU-13 countries, including Poland and Romania. Supported by the SNSF, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC)  and national funding bodies such as UEFISCDI (Romania) and the National Science Centre (Poland), the project brings together complementary expertise to advance cutting-edge antimicrobial research. The scientific objective of Magic Bullet Gels is to develop novel, potent and metabolically stable antimicrobial therapies for topical use by combining antimicrobial peptides with rhenium complexes and integrating them into specialized antibacterial platforms. By investigating how the coordination of a rhenium complex influences the structure, stability and antimicrobial activity of the peptides, as well as the impact of their encapsulation in a microcarrier, the project aims to reveal synergistic mechanisms of action that may exceed the efficacy of each component alone. Given the alarming increase in antimicrobial resistance, this innovative and multidisciplinary approach aims to contribute to the identification of new classes of antimicrobial agents capable of providing effective solutions in a field where urgently needed therapeutic alternatives are increasingly lacking.