Bio-inspired filo-micelles for the effective delivery of anti-biotics

抗生素耐药性是一个重大的、尚未得到满足的全球医疗保健挑战。目前医疗专业人员可用于治疗细菌感染的抗生素工具箱受到其长期疗程的限制。如果抗生素可以安全地以较高剂量输送到细菌感染部位，则可以缩短疗程。我们提出通过使用生物启发的类抗生素聚合物纳米颗粒（称为filomicelles）将抗生素递送到细菌感染部位来实现这一点。该filomicelles将工程从两亲性聚合物使用生物物理技术，并使用一套分析和成像方法的特点。微生物学和分子生物学方法将用于确定所提出的方法在选择性地将抗生素递送到各种人类细胞类型的细菌菌株中的有效性。

Antibiotic resistance is a major, unmet global healthcare challenge. The current toolbox of antibiotics available to medical professionals to treat bacterial infections is limited by their long course durations. Course durations can be reduced if antibiotics can be safely delivered to bacterial infection site(s) at higher doses. We proposed to achieve this by delivering antibiotics to bacterial infection site(s) using bioinspired filament-like polymeric nanoparticles (called filomicelles). The filomicelles will be engineered from amphiphilic polymers using biophysical techniques and characterised using a suite of analytical and imaging methods. Microbiology and molecular biology methods will be used to determine the effectiveness of the proposed approach in selectively delivering antibiotics to bacterial strains over various human cell types.