Redefining Fluoroquinolone Antibiotics: Design and Synthesis of Degradable Fluoroquinolones to Reduce Environmental Persistence
Nathan Raeymackers, Emile De Mol, Martin Yenokyan, Morten Suk, Klaus Kümmerer, Thomas S A Heugebaert, Christian V Stevens · 2026
Read Redefining Fluoroquinolone Antibiotics: Design and Synthesis of Degradable Fluoroquinolones to Reduce Environmental Persistence by Nathan Raeymackers, Emile De Mol, Martin Yenokyan, Morten Suk, Klaus Kümmerer, Thomas S A Heugebaert, Christian V Stevens (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-13529245.txt.
Description
Raeymackers and co-authors (2026) redesigned a widely used antibiotic so it breaks down in the environment instead of persisting. Antibiotics are built for stability, and that stability lets them linger in water and feed resistance. Working on ciprofloxacin, the team swapped its stubborn ring group for a sugar-like ring that forms a degradable link, creating a variant they call Cip-hemi.
The paper reports an efficient synthetic platform for reaching that scaffold and a series of new derivatives built on it. The design aims at two goals at once: restoring strong antibacterial action and ensuring fast breakdown in water. The route avoids most hazardous solvents and largely skips laborious purification steps. The authors present it as a streamlined path to a family of environmentally improved fluoroquinolone antibiotics.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Nathan Raeymackers, Emile De Mol, Martin Yenokyan, Morten Suk, Klaus Kümmerer, Thomas S A Heugebaert, Christian V Stevens |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 37 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |