Project: Phage Therapy Antipersister strategy
| Acronym | PHAGES-AntiPERS (Reference Number: JPIAMR2024_IMPACT-082) |
| Duration | 01/04/2025 - 31/03/2028 |
| Project Topic | Klebsiella pneumoniae, Acinetobacter baumannii, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa, the ESKAPE group members, are deemed critical pathogens by the WHO (Priority 1)due to their extensive resistance to antibiotics. While lytic phages are offered as alternative antibacterials, certain chronic infections retain bacterial persisters resistant to treatment.The PHAGES-AntiPERS consortium is a multidisciplinary team of clinicians, microbiologists, and bioinformaticians, focusing on the use the innovative therapeutic approaches that let to overcome the development of persister cells in chronic and biofilm-associated infections treated by lytic phages and antibiotics.We aim to design and verify “anti-persisters proof of concept strategies“ by antimicrobial combinations of antibiotics, lytic phages, phage-borne enzymes (endolysins and depolymerases), and anti-persister agents (toxin-antitoxin systems(TA),quorum sensing network (QS) and ppGpp signalling inhibitors). The eradication of persister bacteria will be investigated in vitro and in vivo for different antimicrobial combinations, accompanied by the analyses of the phenotypic and genomic basis of anti-persister activity both at the phage and bacteria levels. The PHAGES-AntiPERS initiative entails developing a reference database and biobank of K. pneumoniae, P. aeruginosa, and A. baumannii strains known to develop persistent infections. We are also establishing an AntiPERS Phage bank specifically tailored to target persister cells, providing a foundation for novel and effective treatments against antibiotic-resistant infections. |
| Website | visit project website |
| Network | JPIAMR-ACTION |
| Call | 5TH JPIAMR-ACTION Joint Call 2024 |
Project partner
| Number | Name | Role | Country |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Instituto de Investigación Biomédica A Coruña (Fundación Profesor Novoa Santos) | Coordinator | Spain |
| 2 | National Center of Microbiology, Instituto de Salud Carlos III | Partner | Spain |
| 3 | University of Wroclaw | Partner | Poland |
| 4 | Hadassah Medical center/Hebrew University | Partner | Israel |
| 5 | Quadram Institute Bioscience | Partner | United Kingdom |
| 6 | Ecole Royale Militaire-Koninklijke Militaire School | Observer | Belgium |