{"id":6400,"date":"2019-10-18T11:43:37","date_gmt":"2019-10-18T15:43:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qa.vet.purdue.edu\/news\/?p=6400"},"modified":"2019-10-18T11:43:37","modified_gmt":"2019-10-18T15:43:37","slug":"potential-to-save-lives-motivates-pvm-professor-seeking-solution-to-antibiotic-resistance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/potential-to-save-lives-motivates-pvm-professor-seeking-solution-to-antibiotic-resistance.php","title":{"rendered":"Potential to Save Lives Motivates PVM Professor Seeking Solution to Antibiotic Resistance"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"illustration
With antimicrobial resistance on the rise, many infections that were once easily treated are becoming fatal. (Illustration\/Stuart Briars) <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

With too few antibiotics under development to keep up with\nthe rise of antibiotic-resistant infections, the world is starting to run out\nof antibiotics.  That also means\nhospitals will start seeing more patients with infections they can\u2019t treat, and\nmore infections that were once easily treated are becoming fatal. A Purdue Veterinary\nMedicine scientist is trying to keep that from happening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Mohamed Seleem, professor of microbiology in the Purdue University College of Veterinary Medicine\u2019s Department of Comparative Pathobiology<\/a>, leads a research team that is studying a plethora of FDA-approved drugs looking for ones that can treat antibiotic-resistant infections.  \u201cThe reality is that we are entering a time where we will run out of antibiotics,\u201d Dr. Seleem said. \u201cIt\u2019s a scary thought and it\u2019s a critical situation. That\u2019s what keeps encouraging me \u2013 knowing that if this works, this is going to make a difference and potentially save lives.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Seleem\u2019s research and expertise is focused on developing new antimicrobials and the improved delivery of drugs for the treatment of infectious diseases that affect both humans and animals. Dr. Seleem and his team are working with more than 4,000 approved drugs to see just how many might be able to treat antibiotic resistant infections, such as Neisseria gonorrhoeae (a pathogen responsible for gonorrhea), MRSA, and Clostridium difficile (also known as C. diff).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Mohamed
Professor of Microbiology Mohamed Seleem in the Department of Comparative Pathobiology studies whether FDA-approved drugs can treat antibiotic-resistant infections. (Purdue University photo\/Mark Simons)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

For example, the researchers are screening several drugs to\nsee how well they can treat vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE), which is to\nblame for more than 5% of all deaths attributed to antibiotic-resistant\ninfection in the U.S., second only to MRSA. Enterococci are bacteria that live\nin intestines and genital tracts and can sometimes cause infection, in which\ncase they are treated with an antibiotic called vancomycin. However,\nenterococci are becoming resistant to the drug at an alarming rate. About\n20,000 people in the U.S. are infected with VRE each year, and slightly less\nthan 10% of those infections are fatal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The World Health Organization predicts that worldwide death\nrates from drug-resistant infections will rise from 700,000 per year to 10\nmillion by 2050, which would make them the main cause of death in humans.\nAntibiotics have saved countless lives since they were introduced \u2013 but now,\nantimicrobial resistance is becoming a global health emergency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe could be entering a time where patients will fear common\ninfections,\u201d Dr. Seleem said. \u201cMy hope is that academia will help provide some\nanswers.\u201d  Dr. Seleem is screening\nseveral drugs often used to treat glaucoma, called carbonic anhydrase\ninhibitors (CAIs), to see how well they can treat VRE.  \u201cThe good news about these drugs is that they\ndon\u2019t require extensive studying because it\u2019s already been approved for human\nuse,\u201d Dr. Seleem said. \u201cThe only obstacle that gets in the way is finding the\nright drug that kills exactly the right bacteria.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being able to understand the drugs, including their side effects, saves time and money in Dr. Seleem\u2019s research. Now, it\u2019s a matter of making the drugs more potent and starting pre-clinical trials. Dr. Seleem is working with Dr. Daniel Flaherty, Purdue assistant professor of medicinal chemistry and molecular pharmacology, to learn how to modify the CAIs to make them more potent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAntibiotic resistance is very complicated,\u201d Dr. Seleem\nsaid. \u201cLittle by little, we\u2019re starting to understand it more, and we\u2019re\nstarting to see the bigger picture here.\u201d \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Seleem\u2019s research is supported by the National Institutes of Health, National Academy of Sciences, National Science Foundation, and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Click here for a complete news release<\/a>.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This research aligns with Purdue’s Giant Leaps celebration, which\nacknowledges the university\u2019s global advancements made in health, longevity and\nquality of life as part of Purdue\u2019s 150th anniversary. This is one of the four\nthemes of the yearlong celebration\u2019s Ideas Festival, designed to showcase\nPurdue as an intellectual center solving real-world issues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With too few antibiotics under development to keep up with the rise of antibiotic-resistant infections, the world is starting to run out of antibiotics. That also means hospitals will start seeing more patients with infections they can\u2019t treat, and more infections that were once easily treated are becoming fatal. Dr. Mohamed Seleem, professor of microbiology in the Purdue University College of Veterinary Medicine\u2019s Department of Comparative Pathobiology, leads a research team that is studying a plethora of FDA-approved drugs looking for ones that can treat antibiotic-resistant infections.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":6402,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,37,35,29,11],"tags":[918,123,721,26,602,56,816,171,150,1353],"class_list":["post-6400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faculty-staff","category-infectious-diseases-and-immunology","category-one-health","category-our-people","category-research","tag-antimicrobial-resistance","tag-cpb","tag-drug-discovery","tag-featured-story","tag-giant-leaps","tag-homepage","tag-infectious-diseases-and-immunology","tag-mohamed-seleem","tag-research","tag-stuart-briars"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6400"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6420,"href":"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6400\/revisions\/6420"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}