Eichler, Barrett

• Postdoctoral Fellow, University of California, Davis 

• Ph.D., Inorganic Chemistry, University of Wisconsin, Madison 

• B.A., Chemistry, University of Minnesota-Morris

Infectious diseases are one of the top five health challenges facing humanity. Within the category of infectious diseases, antibiotic resistance is an increasingly threatening problem globally. Novel antimicrobial compounds are always needed to kill bacteria and yeast on surfaces and in solutions. Some antimicrobial compounds, such as cetylpyridinium chloride and benzalkonium chloride, have been used for over 100 years. These antiseptic compounds are known as quaternary ammonium compounds (QAC). QACs work by disrupting the cell membrane of bacteria and yeast.

Our hypothesis is that if rigid, linear diarylacetylenes are turned into dications, with each cation at opposite ends of the molecule, then they can be potent antimicrobial compounds. This class of rigid molecules offer the potential to disrupt the cell membranes more effectively than currently used "floppy" antimicrobials, which can twist and bend to make them less effective, putting all the ionic disruption toward the outside of the cell membrane. In 2023, we began to make rigid diarylacetylene-based QACs using copper-assisted azide-alkyne click (CuAAC) chemistry. We previously published a synthetic method to efficiently synthesize symmetric diarylacetylenes, and this method, when combined with click chemistry, will be used to make antimicrobial compounds with a 1,2,3-tiazoles in them, which we will convert into QACs with benzyl bromide derivatives. These compounds will be tested using assays to determine their antibiotic properties versus gram-positive bacteria, gram-negative bacteria, and yeast/derivatives.