UMass Amherst Researchers Engineer a Protein to Knock out a Germ’s Hiding Place, Extend Life for Cystic Fibrosis Patients
Dec. 30, 2008
| Contact: | Lianhong Sun 413/545-6143 |
AMHERST, Mass. – University of Massachusetts Amherst chemical engineering assistant professor Lianhong Sun and some talented undergraduates recently proposed engineering a mutant protein that, if it proves effective, could help prevent deadly opportunistic lung infections in cystic fibrosis patients. The work is funded by a $400,000 National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development grant.
A paper describing the engineered mutation appears in the January issue of ChemBioChem, the European Journal of Chemical Biology. Sun says, “Our studies might lead to developing new antibiotics that minimize the risk of bacterial drug resistance. Considering the increasing prevalence of bacteria with multi-drug resistance, we hope our work can open a door to reduce such an everlasting fight between human and bacteria.”
Cystic fibrosis is an inherited, chronic disease affecting about 30,000 children and adults in the United States each year with abnormally thick mucus in the lungs and digestive tract. Life expectancy is only about 37 years, in part because once bacteria infect the lungs, it can be very difficult to dislodge them. One bug in particular, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, is especially resistant to antibiotic treatment because it forms a membrane called a biofilm around pockets of infection.
Sun and colleagues identified a protein in the bacterium’s biofilm formation process, RhII, then directed the evolution, or engineered a mutant protein that could help design new drugs to weaken the biofilm. It would block the way the protein functions and block the biofilm production to expose these bacteria and leave them more vulnerable to conventional drug therapy.
Senior Jason Lajoie of Sterling, a UMass Amherst chemical engineering student and Sun’s advisee, won first prize plus $500 in a student scientific poster competition at a recent meeting of the International Society of Pharmaceutical Engineering and Life Sciences (ISPE) for this work.
In addition to Lajoie and Sun, undergraduates Dawn Eriksen of Tyngsboro and graduate student Pavan Kambam of Hyderabad, India, took part in the research. Eriksen, who won the ISPE poster contest in 2006, is now a graduate student in chemical engineering at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. Lajoie is currently part of a six-month cooperative project with the cell culture group of the process sciences department at Abbott Bioresearch Center in Worcester. The focus is on designing antibody therapeutics targeted to specific diseases.
#141-09
E-mail story to a friend 
Printer-friendly version
