With nature providing us with an exhaustless array of peptide and protein based antibacterial molecules mRNA platforms have the potential to deliver the “building instructions” of these molecules to human cells to fight bacterial pathogens.

So far our work has been focused on a proof of concept study using mRNA-encoded bacteriophage endolysins to target Streptococcus pneumoniae in an in vitro model. We demonstrated that this approach enabled the human cells to produce endolysins, which were effective against S. pneumoniae.

Expanding on this work, our team is developing cell culture-based screening methods to test mRNA-based antibacterial substances against Staphylococcus aureus and other bacterial pathogens.