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Abstract The World Health Organization has described the antimicrobial resistance crisis as one of the top ten global public health threats. New antimicrobial agents that can fight infections caused by antimicrobial resistant pathogens are therefore needed. A potential strategy is the development of small molecules that can selectively interact with bacterial membranes (or membranes of other microbial pathogens), and thereby rapidly kill the bacteria. Here, we report the structure‐activity relationship within a group of 22 compounds that were designed to bind the bacterial lipid phosphatidylethanolamine (PE). Liposome‐based studies reveal that the lipophilicity of the compounds has the strongest effect on both the affinity and selectivity for PE. The best results were obtained for compounds with logP≈3.75, which showed a 5x–7x selectivity for bacterial PE lipids over human PC (phosphatidylcholine) lipids. Furthermore, these compounds also showed potent antibacterial activity against the Gram‐positive bacteriumB. cereus, with minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) below 10 μM, a concentration where they showed minimal hemolytic activity against human red blood cells. These results not only show the possibility of PE‐binding small molecules to function as antibiotics, but also provide guidelines for the development of compounds targeting other types of biologically relevant membrane lipids. 

The North American Supramolecular Chemistry (NASC) meetings were established 3 years ago to strengthen the supramolecular chemistry community in North America and to provide a platform for researchers at any stage of their career to present their work and allow network opportunities. NASC 2024 was the third edition of this annual conference and once again showcased the breadth of the field with talks on metal-organic cages and frameworks, anion binding, supramolecular chemistry in space, and many other topics. In this proceedings article, a selection of speakers provides their impression of the NASC 2024 meeting and the field of supramolecular chemistry. 

Early-career scientists need opportunities to present their research and to network. Within the supramolecular chemistry community, local conferences that provide such opportunities have arisen over the last few decades. However, a suitable conference in North America was still missing. In 2022, we therefore organized the first North American Supramolecular Chemistry (NASC) meeting to bring together supramolecular chemists from across the continent and to provide career building opportunities for PhD students and postdocs. For this Conference Proceeding, we asked some of the invited speakers, as well as the winners of the best talk prizes, to provide their opinion of the meeting and their vision on the future of supramolecular chemistry in North America.