Dr. Stephan Hacker (*1986) is working on the synthesis of covalent inhibitors and their application as antibiotics with novel modes-of-action. For this purpose, he is developing new chemical structures that react with the side chains of different amino acids in proteins. He uses the synthesized compounds in phenotypic experiments to identify substances that show antibiotic or antivirulence activity, as well as for the subsequent chemoproteomic detection of target proteins. His research will in this way help to identify bacterial pathways that can be addressed with novel antibiotics.