Jarrod French, PhD, associate professor at The Hormel Institute, University of Minnesota, is the recipient of a yearlong grant totaling more than $140,000 from the University of Minnesota Office of Discovery and Translation.  The grant will support the continued research and development of a novel therapeutic that could enhance the body’s immune system response and offer solutions to some of the challenges raised by drug-resistant strains of fungi and bacteria, potentially saving countless lives. When your body fights an infection, your immune system responds by becoming more active to combat the detected threat. Once the infection is cleared, the immune system ramps down its response and returns to a more normal state.  In collaboration with Dr. Nick Carpino (Stony Brook University), French has been studying a particular class of protein called Suppressor of T Cell Receptor Signaling (STS) that acts as a “negative regulator” of the immune system. When activated, STS helps “turn off” immune system response, similar to the way stepping on your car’s brakes helps bring it to a stop.  The researchers discovered that by blocking the function of the STS suppressor enzyme (i.e., preventing it from hitting the brakes), they could stimulate an immune response and improve the overall response to infection. Hundreds of thousands of systemic bacterial and fungal infections are diagnosed each year in the United States. Mortality rates are high, reaching 30-40% for some types of infection. Unfortunately, current treatment options are limited and often accompanied by severe side effects. Meanwhile, the discovery and incidence of drug-resistant strains of fungi and bacteria are on the rise.  “This funding will support our ongoing efforts to develop and commercialize a small molecule therapeutic that we can use to inactivate the STS protein as a way to treat infectious disease,” French said. “We will be making and testing new derivatives of our compound and doing studies to evaluate effectiveness and safety.”  The goal of this ongoing research led by French and Carpino is to advance a compound series they have developed toward the clinical development stage. Because it targets the immune system response and not a specific microbe, their approach has the potential for broad use against a wide range of fungal and bacterial pathogens. They also expect it could be used either alone or in combination with other existing antibiotics or antifungals. “If successful, the new therapeutics we are developing will be broadly effective against both bacterial and fungal pathogens and could be used together with existing drugs to reduce the needed dosage and reduce side effects,” French said. “Because this strategy targets the immune response and not the pathogen directly, this would also reduce the occurrence of drug resistance.” The post Grant awarded to Institute scientist will support development of immune-enhancing therapeutic appeared first on Austin Daily Herald. ...read more read less