IOI launches new antifungal drug discovery programme

The Ineos Oxford Institute for Antimicrobial Research (IOI) has launched a new antifungal drug discovery programme to address the growing global burden of fungal infections and rising antifungal resistance, which contributes to millions of deaths annually. The initiative aims to overcome the limited number of existing antifungal drug classes by building a full discovery pipeline—from identifying novel fungal vulnerabilities to developing next-generation therapies less prone to resistance. Led by Xuefei (Fei) Chen, the programme integrates microbial ecology, synthetic biology, and medicinal chemistry to discover new compounds, improve existing treatments, and better understand resistance mechanisms, with the ultimate goal of advancing safer and more effective antifungal drugs toward clinical use.