Drug-resistant strains of common bacteria like anthrax, tuberculosis and meningitis render many of doctors? best weapons ? antibiotics ? useless, driving the need to develop new forms of germ-killing drugs.
The Timonium-based Robert W. Deutsch Foundation announced $1 million in funding to develop a new class of drugs that would not have this weakness, according to information released by the University of Maryland A. James Clark School of Engineering. The four-year study aims to pioneer methods of drug testing on the nano-scale that would use smaller traces of pharmaceuticals and involve less risk of germ mutations.
“We are very excited and pleased to support this pioneering research, which represents the enormous potential in the merging of biology and nanotechnology,” Robert W. Deutsch, foundation president, said in a statement. “We believe that practical applications of this research could become the source of future innovations.”
Rather than developing a new antibiotic, which bacteria can develop immunities to, the Deutsch study will look for methods of interrupting communication between bugs. The drugs would target “quorum-sensing” bacteria, which gather in an area of the body and signal each other until there are enough gathered to attack, according to the release.
The biochip can be used as a
testbed, accepting a drug and reporting back on how it performs.
If successful, the research could change the way bacterial diseases like anthrax, tuberculosis, meningitis and pneumonia are treated, according to the release.
The field of nano-technology is not new, but practical innovations have been rare, say industry insiders.
“There aren?t that many commercial successes, but the potential is really tremendous if you can get this to work,” said Jeff Schloss, technology director for the National Human Genome Research Institute. “In some cases you can actually do the experiments better because you have much better control of biological mixing” on the “lab-in-a-chip” model.
Molecular Devices Corp., in California, patented a biochip that can measure detailed responses from individual cells to drug or chemical stimulus. Its Web site touts the ability of this technology to produce high-volumes of data at low cost while accelerating drug development. Other companies like Caliper Technologies and Agilent Technologies have developed similar testing devices, but the technology has yet to bring a new therapy onto the market.
