Research lacks a "succession plan": biologist Monash University researchers are working on a new class of drugs that target the exterior surfaces of bacteria. AUSTRALIAN research faces a succession crisis, and recent events in Canberra don't inspire confidence that it will be solved, says an Australian molecular biologist who's working on a new class of resistance-proof antibiotics without nasty side-effects. Trevor Lithgow, from Monash University's School of Biomedical Sciences, fears he may be part of the last generation of internationally competitive Australian researchers. "The best young people coming back from overseas, or trying to establish themselves in a permanent position, are really struggling," Professor Lithgow told the HES. It's a very hit or miss career option for young people these days. I've got to the point now where I feel secure enough in my own career (to) speak up - you don't want this to be the last generation. Professor Lithgow said it was difficult for the public to appreciate the quality of Australian research, and this flowed through to funding decisions. It's relatively easy to sell a message in terms of health and infrastructure and roads and so on. It's harder to sell the message that we must invest in research. He acknowledged that such things had been said before. It's a discussion had, I would hazard to say, by the vast majority of senior scientists in Australia. I suspect it's even more true outside my own area of molecular biology. The new federal government has generated more concern by doing away with a dedicated research ministry and portfolio. Professor Lithgow said that while people shouldn't "belabour" the significance of titles, they reflected the government's thinking. It's alright to say we want to have titles that have three words or less, in terms of the (signs) on the doors. But I wonder to what extent the title reflects the prioritisation of concerns. Seven years ago Professor Lithgow's team discovered a bacterial protein called BamA and wanted to study it further. Working with US researchers from the National Institutes of Health, they approached the Australian Research Council and NIH for funding. They received small grants which allowed postdoctoral scientists to move between labs in Australia and the US. That support culminated in a paper this month in the journal Nature, detailing BamA's structure - a vital step towards drug development. Professor Lithgow said the target of the work was not BamA itself. He said BamA was essential for all bacteria, and "knocking it out" would kill beneficial as well as disease-causing bacteria. But BamA is a "blueprint" for a cousin protein the team discovered last year. Known as CamA, it tends to only be present in dangerous bacteria. If we had even a small molecule that we could use as a drug or an antibody, that recognised the CamA protein, we'd be able to stop these bacteria from colonising humans - without affecting their ability to grow, or indeed the ability of other bacteria in the neighbourhood to grow. He said BamA and CamA were "good surrogate structures," and understanding the first gave clues about the second. "We can now do direct experiments on CamA," he said. The aim is a whole new class of antibiotics that don't kill beneficial bacteria. They would also be resistant to resistance, because they would target bacteria's outside surfaces. The antibiotics we currently have - including last line of defence antibiotics - all need to get inside a bacterium to exert their effect. They must have the ability to penetrate a bacterium and cause it grief once they get in there. Bacteria are very smart and have all sorts of ways of simply flicking these things back outside, and then they become resistant to them. We're looking at therapies that work on the outside surface of the bacterium. Finding resistance would be harder. Nothing's impossible in biology, but harder. Such drugs are not "a Christmas present in the offing," he said. Identifying the active compound could take a year or two, and clinical trials could take a decade. "It's the sort of thing you wish people had funded ten years ago," Professor Lithgow said. Then we would now be having a conversation about Christmas presents. Trying to find them now really means we're trying to find a solution to a problem which is already on us.