Researchers at Queen’s University Belfast have developed a cutting-edge new medical therapy that could protect UK hospital patients against a lethal superbug.
The treatment, which uses a molecule called an inhibitor to prevent the new superbug Klebsiella pneumonia from blocking the body’s natural defences, has the potential to save thousands of lives in the UK each year. Klebsiella, which has mortality rates of 25-60%, can cause bladder infections and pneumonia and is resistant to all major antibiotics.
The research team, from the School of Medicine, Dentistry and Biomedical Sciences at Queen’s, found that Klebsiella can survive inside white blood cells called ‘macrophages’, which are meant to protect the human body from infection. The superbug takes over a protein in the blood cell called ‘Akt’, paralysing the cell and making it the perfect shelter to avoid being killed by antibiotics.
The team showed that by treating the cell with the inhibitor — which stops ‘Akt’ protein from working.