(techno-style music)
-: In your nose, on your mouth,
and on the surfaces all around you,
is a bacteria called staphylococcus aureus, or staph.
While this bacteria is typically harmless,
recently, antibiotic-resistant strains of this
such as MRSA, have induced devastating infections
of the heart, lungs, skin, and bone.
Alone, MRSA infections are responsible
for over $4.2 billion of healthcare costs,
and 1.2 million hospitalizations
in the United States each year.
The reason these numbers are so high
is because there are virtually
no treatment options for these infections.
We hypothesize that a bacteria-eating virus
called a bacteria phage, could fill this niche.
These viruses are found abundantly in nature,
are highly specific and non-toxic.
To evaluate these viruses, we chose to focus
on osteomyelitis, or bone infection.
Patients with this disease
often undergo amputation or death.
This is because the architecture of bone
forms a great place for bacteria to hide.
We assume that if we could treat osteomyelitis,
we'd be able to treat all of the
other MRSA-induced infections.
And thus, we chose to focus on this type of infection.
We first decided to make our bacterial strain fluorescent,
which you can see right here above.
At even four times the clinically recommended amount
of vancomycin, a very common antibiotic for this disease,
we are unable to clear the bacteria,
indicated by the presence of the green above.
However, when we used our bacteria phage, or virus,
where we see the black panel, this is because
we've completely cleared the bacteria.
After completing this testing,
we decided to move on to testing in a living model,
which you can see on the left hand side of my slide.
To induce infection in a rat, we first cultured
our glowing bacteria onto a screw
and then placed it into the femur of the rat.
Within one week, infection was established,
and it was at this time that the rat received
either vancomycin or phage, or a combination of the two.
You can see in the bottom portion of this figure
that the phage was able to successfully clear infection,
although not entirely.
Ultimately, our goal was to either meet
the same efficacy of antibiotics, or approve upon them,
and we do feel that we have done this.
Thus, we believe that virus-based therapeutics,
such as bacteria phages, as we've discussed,
have the potential to save not only millions of dollars
of healthcare costs, but the lives of you,
me, and the ones that we love.
Thank you.