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As explained in the video on the left, we use pig lungs from a commercial butcher and culture them in the lab in conditions that closely mimic chronic cystic fibrosis infection. This lets us study pathogen community ecology and pathology in a very realistic context. Because the lungs we use are a waste product from pigs slaughtered for meat, this model is also very ethical and, in the future, its wider adoption could reduce the use of live animals in infection research.
This work is currently funded by the Medical Research Council and the National Biofilms Innovation Centre. |
Most antimicrobials derive from natural compounds. Ethnopharmacology - the study of traditional medicines - is therefore an important tool in the development of new antibiotics. However, the standard approach of purifying individual compounds from traditional medicinal plants and other natural materials has a low rate of conversion to clinically-useful products. But historical infection remedies often involve complex preparations of several ingredients. This could be crucial to producing an efficacious remedy. Medieval European manuscripts contain numerous remedies for microbial infections, and the AncientBiotics team previously conducted a detailed pilot study of an Anglo-Saxon remedy for eye infection. The remedy was highly bactericidal against Staphylococcus aureus, a common cause of antibiotic-resistant soft tissue infections. Importantly, the recipe’s efficacy required us to prepare and combine ingredients exactly as specified by the text. This suggests that there could be many other historical remedies that could yield effective antimicrobial compounds.
Research into the clinical potential of our first candidate AncientBiotic is funded by Diabetes UK. |
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