Dr. Jessica Seeliger leads project to develop more effective anti-TB therapeutics.

SUNY Health Network of Excellence targets antibiotic-resistant infections

By Mary Fiess

Over the last 70 years, antibiotics and similar drugs have greatly reduced illness and death from infectious diseases. Many drugs, however, no longer work as well as they once did because the infectious organisms they are designed to kill have adapted to them.

So-called MRSA infections, which are prevalent in hospitals and elsewhere, are one example of the problem. MRSA, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, is a type of staphylococcus or "staph" bacterium that is resistant to many antibiotics. Some strains of the bacterium that causes tuberculosis, TB, have also developed antibiotic resistance, making a disease that is already difficult to treat an even greater challenge.

Each year in the United States, at least 2 million people become infected with bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics and at least 23,000 people die as a direct result of these infections, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

This growing public health threat is spurring research to develop new treatments. To advance the work of SUNY researchers in this arena, the SUNY Health Network of Excellence is funding two projects aimed at drug-resistant bacteria, one focusing on the bacterium that causes tuberculosis, Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), and the other on MRSA.

Leading the project to develop more effective anti-TB therapeutics is Jessica Seeliger, an assistant professor in the Department of Pharmacological Sciences in the School of Medicine at Stony Brook University.

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