I-Corps: Commercialization of an Enzymatic Method for Biofilm Removal

I-Corps：生物膜去除酶法的商业化

• 批准号: 1612047
• 负责人: Bryan Berger
• 金额: $ 5万
• 依托单位: Lehigh University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-12-01 至 2016-11-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1612047&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Corps; Commercialization; Enzymatic; Method; Biofilm

Bacteria have evolved a wide range of strategies to adhere to and grow on metallic and other physical surfaces. Disease causing bacteria produce a protective coating, known as biofilm, which shields the bacteria from chemical treatments while at the same time allowing them to attach to these physical surfaces. This has a major economic and health impact on manufacturing of packaged foods, pharmaceuticals and consumer goods as well as medical devices. A specific example is the health impact of foodborne illnesses caused by bacteria in the United States, where the estimated cost in terms of medical treatments, loss of work, resultant disability and mortality is at least $55 billion a year. Furthermore, preventing bacterial contamination throughout the food manufacturing process presents several unique challenges. While both industry and government agree that a solution to the increasing number of infections from food products is required, 'poultry processors have resisted, arguing that it would be expensive and ultimately futile, because Salmonella is so pervasive.' Thus, an effective solution to this and other similar challenges must (1) provide broad activity against a wide range of bacterial pathogens due to their prevalence throughout the manufacturing process and (2) do so in a cost-effective manner compatible with current manufacturing processes.This I-Corps team has developed a series of engineered enzymes, which are biological molecules that exhibit broad biofilm-degrading activity against a wide range of microbial biofilms. The enzymes retain activity in the presence of common additives used in commercial disinfectants, making them suitable as biocompatible disinfectants in food, pharmaceutical and other manufacturing processes. The proposed technology directly addresses a critical, unmet need to improve water quality, food safety, multi-drug resistance and thus well being of society through the development of enzyme-based technologies that can remove biofilm, which is a major factor that contributes to multidrug resistance and persistence. The I-Corps program will enable the team to identify an effective cost per use, which is key in benchmarking the effectiveness of the proposed approach relative to current enzyme technologies.

细菌已经进化出多种策略来粘附并在金属和其他物理表面上生长。致病细菌会产生一层称为生物膜的保护层，它可以保护细菌免受化学处理，同时允许它们附着在这些物理表面上。这对包装食品、药品、消费品以及医疗设备的制造产生重大的经济和健康影响。一个具体的例子是美国细菌引起的食源性疾病对健康的影响，估计每年在医疗、失业、由此造成的残疾和死亡方面的成本至少为 550 亿美元。此外，在整个食品制造过程中防止细菌污染也带来了一些独特的挑战。 虽然行业和政府都同意需要找到解决方案来解决日益增多的食品感染问题，但“家禽加工商却对此表示抵制，认为这样做成本高昂，而且最终徒劳无功，因为沙门氏菌非常普遍。”因此，针对这一挑战和其他类似挑战的有效解决方案必须（1）提供针对多种细菌病原体的广泛活性，因为它们在整个制造过程中普遍存在，并且（2）以与当前制造过程兼容的经济有效的方式做到这一点I-Corps 团队开发了一系列工程酶，这些酶是生物分子，对多种微生物生物膜表现出广泛的生物膜降解活性。这些酶在商业消毒剂中使用的常见添加剂存在下仍保持活性，使其适合在食品、制药和其他制造过程中作为生物相容性消毒剂。拟议的技术通过开发可以去除生物膜的酶技术，直接解决了改善水质、食品安全、多重耐药性以及社会福祉的关键、未满足的需求，生物膜是导致多重药物的主要因素抵抗和坚持。 I-Corps 计划将使团队能够确定每次使用的有效成本，这是对所提出的方法相对于当前酶技术的有效性进行基准测试的关键。