As the E. coli bacteria poses a growing threat to consumers of meat and produce, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases recently awarded $3.9 million to University researcher Tom Obrig to help combat a life-threatening disease associated with the bacteria.
According to Obrig, the primary complication E. coli causes is hemolytic uremic syndrome. The cause of the kidney damage people often sustain after exposure to E. coli is not the bacteria itself, but a toxin produced by a specific strain of E. coli, the same strain that has caused recent contamination scares.
"The people that are most affected by it can suffer severe, sometimes life-threatening damage," Obrig said, noting that the kidney damage that many victims sustain grows for several days after the initial infection.
"There is an opportunity to block the spread of the disease in the kidney, and that's what we are trying to do," he said.
To receive the grant, Obrig said he applied to a request from NIAID for applicants developing anti-inflammatory agents against HUS.
According to Obrig, the focus of the grant is to complete pre-clinical testing of potential agents that might impede the progression of the disease.
"We have developed a mouse model that has all the features of the human disease," he said. "That's the model we are using to develop therapeutic targets and test for agents in that model."
At this point, Obrig said he has some promising compounds that protect 70 percent of animals from a lethal interaction with the disease and plans to try many other agents as well.
According to Bill Petri, University Medical School chief of infectious diseases and international health, Obrig is one of the world leaders in HUS research.
"Obrig understands the role of the immune response that is set in action by this toxin, and he is not stopping at [his study of] kidney infection," he said. "He is also looking at different possibilities to stop the disease progression and how that can develop into drugs that could modulate or change the response [of the body] to the toxin."
Though research can help fight the disease, the center of the E. coli problem cannot be easily solved in a laboratory, Petri said, noting that the source of the problem comes from chemical runoffs from farms that can be absorbed into fresh produce and eaten by cows, he said.
"This is a problem of the developed world exclusively and can only be addressed with a reflection on our agriculture and animal husbandry practices," he added.
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