Hospital Superbugs: Could One Vaccine Rule Them All?
Published:01 Nov.2023 Source:University of Southern California
That's the premise behind an experimental vaccine invented by a USC-led team and patented by the university. Researchers designed the formula to prevent serious infections from drug-resistant pathogens. A new study shows that a single dose, administered in mouse models, put immune cells into "Incredible Hulk" mode, providing rapid protection against eight different bacteria and fungi species.
"It's an early warning system. It's like Homeland Security putting out a terror alert. 'Everybody, keep your eyes open. Keep an eye out for suspicious packages'," said senior author Brad Spellberg, chief medical officer at the USC-affiliated Los Angeles General Medical Center (formerly LAC+USC) "You're alerting the soldiers and tanks of your immune system. The vaccine activates them. 'Oh my, there's danger here. I better turn into the Hulk.' I mean, when you have bad superbugs lurking, that's when you want the Hulk waiting to pounce rather than Dr. Banner, right?"
The study appears October 4 in Science Translational Medicine. The USC Stevens Center for Innovation, the technology licensing office for USC, successfully filed one patent for the vaccine and is pursuing others. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, gave the researchers' startup, ExBaq LLC, nearly $1 million in the form of a small business grant, aimed at speeding up solutions to high-priority problems.