Fighting the War Against Drug-Resistant Infections

Discoveries made by Dr. Magnus Höök will help in the war against deadly bacterial infections. The exploration of these discoveries are also fulfilling part of the mission of Texas A&M University's Institute of Biosciences and Technology. The IBT encourages technology transfer of research discoveries made in its labs to the marketplace.

"We are losing the war against infections," says Dr. Höök, Neva and Wesley West Professor at IBT. "The antibiotic weapons we've relied upon in the past to treat infections and kill bacteria aren't working anymore. Bacteria have acquired counter-weapons and are resistant to many antibiotics. New approaches need to be developed to prevent and treat infections."

In his role as director of IBT's Center for Extracellular Matrix Biology, Höök works with a new technology based on MSCRAMMs. MSCRAMM is a term coined by Höök's research team in the early 1990s that stands for Microbial Surface Components Recognizing Adhesive Matrix Molecules. By explaining this term, he helps to explain the new approach to fighting infection.

"Bacteria need to attach to the host in order to cause an infection" he explains. "Bacteria use surface structures, that we call MSCRAMMs, that recognize and bind to specific sites in the host tissue. If we can interfere with this interaction and prevent bacteria from attaching to the host, we will also prevent the infection. Bacteria cannot establish a beach head in the host and we have stopped the infection before it develops."

Höök's research in this area provides a working platform for the development of antibody-based products for treating infectious diseases. Inhibitex, Inc., a start-up biotechnology company, is based on this technology and is now established in Alpharetta, Georgia, outside Atlanta. Begun with venture capital provided by the AM Fund in College Station, and later by a group in Georgia, Inhibitex recently received a second infusion of funds and has several products in clinical trials. Successful development by Inhibitex of Höök's new antibody-based approach would result in both saved lives and significant reductions in healthcare costs associated with preventing and treating bacterial infections.

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©2006 Texas Medical Center

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