More than 2.8 million Americans suffer from antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections annually, and about 35,000 of these patients do not outgrow their infection, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Hongjun (Henry) Liang, Ph.D. of TTUHSC, received a patent that allows his lab to produce novel nanoparticles known as nanoantibiotics that can kill some infection-causing pathogens without affecting healthy cells. Image credit: Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center.
Hongjun (Henry) Liang, Ph.D., of the Department of Cell Physiology and Molecular Biophysics at Texas Tech University Health Science Center (TTUHSC), has focused his research on creating new nanoparticles known as nanoantibiotics that treat bacterial infections, especially those that are resistant to treatment with commonly used antibiotics, to find solutions to the problem of antibiotic resistance.
On July 26, 2022, a US patent entitled “Hydrophilic Nanostructured Membrane Active Antimicrobials with High Activity, Selectivity, and Biodegradability” had been issued in connection with Liang’s work, which allowed the team from the laboratory of Liang manufacture the innovative nanoantibiotics.
We already have many antibiotics in clinical use, and many of them are quite effective for common infections. But we face this growing challenge with MRSA (methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus) and other types of drug-resistant bacteria, which are the bacteria that turn ordinary infections into life-threatening events.
Hongjun Liang, Department of Cell Physiology and Molecular Biophysics, Texas Tech University Health Science Center
Liang wants to create a new class of antibiotics that can kill bacteria without harming healthy cells, that degrade naturally in the environment and biosphere, so that they don’t disrupt natural bacterial activity in natural environments and is less likely to lead to resistance.
Previous studies have shown that a molecule’s ability to repel water (hydrophobicity) or to attract water and dissolve in it (hydrophilicity) has a significant impact on cells. According to Liang, a material will have a greater negative effect the more hydrophobic it is.
He emphasized that, however, there is no quantitative benchmark for the acceptable level of hydrophobicity.
Liang added, “Basically, you can kill bacteria when you increase the hydrophobicity. But it will also kill healthy cells, and we don’t want that.”
Liang’s team created unique hydrophilic nanoantibiotics in a study published in January 2022 in Nature Communications. These nanoantibiotics looked like tiny furry spheres and were made of many hydrophilic polymer brushes grafted onto silica nanoparticles of various sizes.
These artificial substances, which are also produced by Liang’s lab, are intended to kill bacteria by disrupting their membranes by using a different method of membrane remodeling that affects bacterial membranes and leaves the cells of unharmed mammals.
This was the third paper on nanoantibiotics that the Liang lab has published. The first and second publications describing the approach to the design of hydrophilic nanoantibiotics were published in 2017 by ACS Infectious Disease and in 2020 by Biomacromolecules.
Both were highlighted by Chemical & Engineering News and featured as cover stories in their respective magazines.
Liang said his team is now focusing on a two-pronged approach to improve and improve nanoantibiotics for use in patients, armed with the three published findings and the patent.
Driving clinical trials is the first strategy, which Liang defined as the research and academic component of his approach. Liang’s lab will begin this process by submitting new applications for federal funding that support animal studies and eventually lead to human clinical trials.
He said, “This is more like the research and academic side of our endeavor.”
The second element of their approach is to work with the Texas Tech University Innovation Hub to help commercialize Liang’s lab’s invention.
“By leveraging our Innovation Hub’s research commercialization training opportunity, we hope to be able to identify pharmaceutical industry stakeholders who are able or willing to collaborate with us. One of our likely directions is sol… apply for an SBIR (Small Business Innovation Research) grant for pilot-scale production. This is our two-pronged approach,” Liang said.
Infection is a major concern for both scientists and practicing physicians, according to Liang. By leveraging innovation to develop a new generation of antibiotics, he hopes to overcome this problem.
Liang concluded: “This is our goal, and we are well on our way to achieving it. I can’t say that this is the only way to go; of course, there are many different ways. The novelty of our contribution is to tackle this challenge by designing antibiotics from a nanoengineering point of view. This is a very new path that is not well explored, and we are proud of our progress so far.”
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