A high profile research paper, co-authored by St Hugh’s E. P. Abraham Cephalosporin Fellow in Organic Chemistry, Professor Stuart Conway, was recently published in the international weekly journal, Science. The result of a collaboration with researchers at Caltech, USA, the research could revolutionise our understanding of infectious pathogens and how to treat them.
The project examines how certain pathogens are harder to treat with modern medicines, due to the development of bacteria into biofilms: layers of metabolically active but slowly growing bacteria embedded in a protective layer of slime, which are inherently more resistant to antibiotics.
Led by Dianne Newman, Caltech’s Gordon M. Binder/Amgen Professor of Biology and Geobiology, the group has identified a naturally occurring protein that degrades and inhibits biofilms of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, the primary pathogen in cystic fibrosis infections. Further research will be required to see how the findings can be developed in a clinical context.
Read more about the research project here, and explore the paper in more detail here.
