SBIR Phase I: Development of a Novel Antibiotic-Alternative Treatment for a Devastating Honey Bee Disease

这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是开发可能是FDA批准的第一个专门为蜜蜂设计的噬菌体治疗性非抗生素药物。这种治疗方法有可能成为治疗美国恶臭病的全球黄金标准，这是一种由细菌类芽孢杆菌幼虫引起的毁灭性蜜蜂疾病，威胁着美国270万个蜂箱和全球9250万个蜂箱。美国的污卵处理市场机会为5亿美元，该技术有望显著降低蜜蜂目前前所未有的死亡率，减少蜂箱中使用的抗生素，这使环境中的抗生素耐药性永久化，并支持有机农业生产。SBIR第一阶段项目提出扩大幼虫类芽孢杆菌菌株的收集，用于新型噬菌体疗法的开发，扩大幼虫疟原虫噬菌体文库，从该文库可以产生优化的治疗，并相互测试以确定最佳的治疗噬菌体组合。扩大幼虫疟原虫菌株和疟原虫收集是至关重要的，因为疟原虫对其宿主具有高度特异性。将从整个美国收集P.幼虫和噬菌体的样品。这些大大扩大的噬菌体和细菌收集将有助于确保治疗方法的开发，以有效地治疗任何美国的腐臭幼虫感染。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) project is the development of potentially the first FDA-approved phage therapeutic, non-antibiotic remedy specifically designed for honeybees. This treatment has the potential to become the global gold standard for treating American Foulbrood, a devastating honey bee disease caused by the bacteria Paenibacillus larvae, which threatens 2.7 million beehives in the United States and 92.5 million beehives worldwide. The American foulbrood treatment market opportunity is $500 M, and this technology promises a significant reduction of current unprecedented mortality rates of honeybees, curtailment of antibiotics being used in beehives, which perpetuates antibiotic resistance in the environment, and support for organic agricultural production.This SBIR Phase I project proposes to expand the collection of Paenibacillus larvae bacterial strains for novel phage therapy development, enlarge the library of P. larvae bacteriophages from which an optimized treatment can be created, and test against each other to determine the optimal therapeutic phage combination. The expansion of the P. larvae strain and phages collection is critical because of the high specificity phages have for their hosts. Samples of P. larvae and phage will be collected from the entire United States. These greatly expanded phage and bacteria collections will help to ensure that treatments will be developed to effectively treat any American foulbrood infection.