The project aims to create new antibacterial drugs different from antibiotics and to discover new inhibitors that will specifically block the toxins of pathogenic bacteria and thus target the pathogenic bacteria only.
The creation of new antibacterial drugs requires greater investment in research, because the resistance of bacteria to antibiotics is becoming one of the burning problems at clinics, and the investment in research so far and the discovery of new antibacterial drugs is very low, Djikic said in a statement on Saturday.
This is the second ERC project that has been awarded to Djikic, after he studied the metastatic potential of tumours during inflammatory processes.
Djikic is a recipient of the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize, Germany's most important research award, and is a member of the Leopoldina, the German Academy of Sciences. He has received a number of prestigious international awards, including those from the American Association for Cancer Research and the European Association for Cancer Research.