Our study focuses on on the development of new treatments for clinically important bacteria such as Neisseria gonorrhoeae, which causes the common STD gonorrhea and other bacteria that infect burn wounds. The ever-increasing antibiotic resistance can make even mild, common infections very dangerous for some people. This requires us to develop new treatments for infections, which are based on different principles than classical antibiotics.

Any bacteria that successfully infects a human must be able to defend itself against the complement system, a key part of the immune system whose main function is to identify, label and kill bacteria. We have previously shown that many bacteria cover their surface with complement inhibitors, stolen from the human they infect, as a defense. We now want to investigate whether this property can be used to develop new treatments with specially designed proteins. These proteins should prevent interactions with complement inhibitors while initiating a complement attack on the bacterial surface. An advantage of the therapeutic use of these molecules is the low risk of resistance development, as the ability to bind complement inhibitors exploited by our proteins provides a survival advantage.

First, we will test our proteins in simpler systems outside the body and then confirm that they also work in animal models. If this shows the expected data, we will start clinical trials to see if our proteins can be used to successfully treat patients.

Anna Blom, Professor
Lund University

Research project
New treatments for infections based on pathogenic bacteria's strategies to escape the complement system

Anna Blom
Professor at Protein Chemistry Malmö, Department of Translational Medicine