Focco van den Akker

Focco van den Akker is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biochemistry at the School of Medicine, Case Western Reserve University. His research focuses on structural biology and drug discovery targeting bacterial cell wall components, particularly proteins involved in peptidoglycan metabolism such as β-lactamases, penicillin-binding proteins (PBPs), and lytic transglycosylases. He collaborates extensively with experts in microbiology, medicinal chemistry, and pharmaceutical companies to combat antibiotic resistance. Additional projects include developing agents to prevent preterm birth and nitrosylation modulators for kidney injury prevention.

Education: PhD from the University of Washington, followed by postdoctoral training at the Lerner Research Institute, Cleveland Clinic.

Research Interests: Structural biology of antibiotic resistance mechanisms, inhibitor design for β-lactamases, lytic transglycosylase inhibition, and translational drug discovery. Key techniques include protein crystallography, biophysical assays (DSF, SPR), and computational methods (molecular dynamics simulations).

Recent Articles: Focused on β-lactamase inhibitor mechanisms, structural characterization of antibiotic resistance variants (e.g., KPC-2 D179N/Y), and novel γ-lactam antibiotics. Highlights include studies on avibactam/relebactam inhibition and lytic transglycosylase inhibitors for Campylobacter jejuni.

Grants & Collaborations: NIH-funded projects on preterm birth prevention and lytic transglycosylase inhibitors. Collaborations with Drs. Robert Bonomo, Jonathan Stamler, and pharmaceutical partners like Bayer AG.

Labs/Teams: The van den Akker Lab integrates structural biology, enzymology, and drug discovery, with active projects on inhibitor design and fragment-based ligand discovery.