Polymersomes to enhance therapeutic options for treating intracellular bacterial infections

聚合物囊泡可增强细胞内细菌感染的治疗选择

• 批准号: 2750749
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Southampton
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2021 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2750749
• 关键词: Polymersomes; enhance; therapeutic; options; treating

The risk of exposure to an infectious agent for military personnel can be high as a consequence of exposure to endemic diseases in deployment environments, as a consequence of battlefield injuries or due to exposure to a deliberate release of a biological warfare (BW) agent. A common feature of many bacterial BW agents is that they are intracellular pathogens with low infectious dose and high mortality rates. Examples include Burkholderia pseudomallei, the causative agent of melioidosis, Francisella tularensis, the causative agent of tularaemia, Yersinia pestis, the causative agent of plague and Coxiella burnetii, the causative agent of Q fever. Infections caused by these are inherently difficult to treat and current therapeutic options are limited and often inefficient.[1, 2, 3] Furthermore, the ever growing misuse and overuse of antibiotics had led to the accelerating emergence of multi-drug resistant bacteria and failure of existing therapeutics.[4] Consequently, there is an immediate medical need for the development of new effective treatments [5] which can be easily deployed and administered in a military setting. The aim of this project will be to investigate novel PM-based encapsulation technology to enhance bioavailability of existing therapeutics for the treatment of BW infections. Since reducing the logistical burden of antibiotic delivery is essential in a military operational context, a research focus will be the investigation and development of formulations that can be self-administered, for example by oral or inhalational routes. The project activities of this part-time PhD will be largely conducted at Dstl. The project will capitalise on access to existing PM formulation expertise at the University of Southampton and the facilities at Dstl which will allow in vitro and in vivo work to be conducted using containment level 3 (CL3) BW pathogens.

由于在部署环境中接触地方病，由于战场受伤或由于接触故意释放的生物战剂，军事人员接触传染剂的风险可能很高。许多细菌BW因子的共同特征是它们是具有低感染剂量和高死亡率的细胞内病原体。实例包括类鼻疽的病原体类鼻疽伯克霍尔德氏菌、土拉菌病的病原体土拉热弗朗西丝氏菌、鼠疫的病原体鼠疫耶尔森氏菌和Q热的病原体贝氏柯克斯体。由这些引起的感染本质上很难治疗，目前的治疗选择有限，而且往往效率低下。[1，2，3]此外，滥用和过度使用抗生素的情况日益严重，导致多重耐药细菌的加速出现和现有治疗方法的失败。[4]因此，迫切需要开发新的有效治疗方法[5]，这些方法可以在军事环境中轻松部署和管理。该项目的目的是研究新型基于PM的封装技术，以提高治疗BW感染的现有疗法的生物利用度。由于减少抗生素输送的后勤负担在军事行动中至关重要，因此研究重点将是研究和开发可以自我管理的制剂，例如通过口服或吸入途径。这个兼职博士的项目活动将主要在DSTL进行。该项目将利用南安普顿大学和Dstl设施的现有PM配方专业知识，这将允许使用3级（CL3）BW病原体进行体外和体内工作。