Vaccines, Therapeutics, and Antimicrobial Resistance

The Martin-Gatton College of Agriculture, Food and Environment and Kentucky Farm Bureau hosted a 2-day Ag Policy Tour for staff of Kentucky’s congressional delegation. Staff representing the offices of Senator McConnell and Representatives Barr, Guthrie, and Comer were present. 

The purpose of the tour was to help familiarize congressional offices with issues of importance to Kentucky agriculture and UK’s Research and Extension programs related to agriculture.  As part of the tour, UK hosted a panel of researchers who have been successful in obtaining federal research support, particularly from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture. 

Dr. Yosra A. Helmy (pictured left) has presented her USDA-funded project on using Nissle E. coli 1917 as antibiotic-alternative to combat antibiotic-resistant Campylobacter infections and the importance of developing novel therapeutics for combating antimicrobial-resistant infections in animals and humans.

Our group envisions exploring modalities that harness immune functions for therapeutic interventions using small molecules. Designing a drug with high efficacy, minimal toxicity, and sustained protection is a significant challenge. However, the human immune system has evolved to effectively balance these factors, prioritizing host defense with minimal side effects by employing both innate and adaptive responses to rapidly and sustainably protect against a wide range of threats.

We aim to develop bifunctional small molecules that enable immune detection of evasive targets. By creating tools that improve the immune system’s ability to recognize these hidden threats, we seek to uncover new pathways for effective and well-tolerated treatments. This approach is particularly promising for combating invasive fungal infections (IFIs), which often evade immune detection by altering their appearance. IFIs affect 300 million people globally and cause over a million deaths each year. Given their modular design, these bifunctional molecules could potentially be adapted to target other immune-evasive diseases beyond fungal infections.