Initiating Drug Discovery for Applications in Bacteriophage Treatment of Multi-Drug Resistant Staphylococcus aureus Infections
Location
Access Type
Open Access
Entry Number
61
Start Date
4-7-2021 10:15 AM
End Date
4-7-2021 10:30 AM
Department
Biology
Abstract
Antibiotic-resistant bacteria have become an important problem in the treatment of bacterial infections. Staphylococcus aureus infections, such as MRSA, are known to be resistant to many different antibiotics and can be hard to treat. Phage therapy has been identified as a potential alternative to antibiotic treatments. Current approaches for using bacteriophages to treat multidrug-resistant infections focus on identifying new effective phage for each individual patient’s bacterial infection, which is expensive and time-consuming, and do not address the potential for transferring genes that increase virulence to new bacteria. My goal is to exploit the presence of dormant prophage already residing in the bacteria to eliminate the need for discovery and culturing infective phage. My goal is to optimize a 96-well plate format of the phage lysis assay and create a protocol to screen small molecule/compound libraries to see if they reactivate the prophage and trigger lysis of S. aureus host cells. Our goal will be to identify compounds that specifically activate the phage late operon and avoid the production of infectious virions. This work will have potential direct applications in treating multidrug-resistant S. aureus infections. Antibiotics have been successful in the past, but the increasing rate of infections caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria demands an alternative to protect our health. Phage therapy has the potential to become the future of treatment for bacterial resistance and my goal is to contribute to the research and development of making this happen.
Faculty Mentor(s)
Dr. Jamie BrooksDr. Jennifer StyrskyDr. Debbie Bradney
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Initiating Drug Discovery for Applications in Bacteriophage Treatment of Multi-Drug Resistant Staphylococcus aureus Infections
Antibiotic-resistant bacteria have become an important problem in the treatment of bacterial infections. Staphylococcus aureus infections, such as MRSA, are known to be resistant to many different antibiotics and can be hard to treat. Phage therapy has been identified as a potential alternative to antibiotic treatments. Current approaches for using bacteriophages to treat multidrug-resistant infections focus on identifying new effective phage for each individual patient’s bacterial infection, which is expensive and time-consuming, and do not address the potential for transferring genes that increase virulence to new bacteria. My goal is to exploit the presence of dormant prophage already residing in the bacteria to eliminate the need for discovery and culturing infective phage. My goal is to optimize a 96-well plate format of the phage lysis assay and create a protocol to screen small molecule/compound libraries to see if they reactivate the prophage and trigger lysis of S. aureus host cells. Our goal will be to identify compounds that specifically activate the phage late operon and avoid the production of infectious virions. This work will have potential direct applications in treating multidrug-resistant S. aureus infections. Antibiotics have been successful in the past, but the increasing rate of infections caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria demands an alternative to protect our health. Phage therapy has the potential to become the future of treatment for bacterial resistance and my goal is to contribute to the research and development of making this happen.