P. Nallathamby
University of Notre Dame,
United States
Keywords: antibacterial nanoparticles
Summary:
The Nallathamby lab has invented a nanoparticle system that mimics the structure of viruses (phages) that kill only bacteria with high efficiency. Our invention is antibiotic free and has an astounding 99.999% kill-rate against four drug-resistant bacterial strains (e.g., S. aureus) derived from infected patients in clinics. We used our phage-mimicking antibacterial nanoparticles as a platform with a fluorescent reporter system to detect infectious agents in wounds with the explicit purpose of monitoring the health of the wound healing and to clear existing infections in wounds to promote long term healthy wound healing by preventing recurrent infections at the wound site. The current standard of care’s indiscriminate use of inappropriate doses of antibiotics has created more drug-resistant bacterial strains which have led to persistent wounds with non-curable, recurrent infections. Our invention addresses the current problem of treating wounds blindly with antibiotics without monitoring the wound site regularly to see if infectious agents have been cleared before wound closure.