While most infection control innovations work to destroy disease-causing pathogens, a team at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center's Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute has received federal funding explore solutions that take advantage of real-time microbial adaptation to neutralize microbes' ability to cause illness.
A group of researchers at the institute recently received $1.6 million from the National Institutes of Health to develop anti-infective agents to neutralize methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, according to a news release. The project hopes to drive real-time microbial adaptations disadvantageous to pathogens for which antibiotics are all but useless.
"Antibiotic resistance is a predictable result of microbial survival instincts in the face of drugs that are designed to kill them…By fundamentally changing our approach, we are exploring totally new ways to tame the microbes and slow their resistance," said Michael Yearman, PhD, one of the project's researchers, in the release. "Our approach interferes with the adaptations MRSA uses to survive in the body. Enhancing the effectiveness of existing antibiotics and minimizing resistance by dangerous microbes like MRSA are public health priorities directly addressed by our research."
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