CAN’T STOP HOUSTON FROM REVOLUTIONIZING DRUG DELIVERY SYSTEMS
UH Scientists Paving the Way for the Future of Medicine
Refine. Reshape. Reimagine. Those three words define the University of Houston, particularly when it comes to what the world knows about medicine. And over the past year, UH has been at the forefront of groundbreaking medical research that could change how we tackle everything from cancer and infectious disease to autoimmune disorders and antibiotic resistance.
For example, UH scientists have studied the effectiveness of new drugs like Ibezapolstat, an antibiotic that fights the deadly superbug Clostridioides difficile, or C. diff, which pushes the boundaries of how medicines are delivered and how they work inside the body. This type of work is why UH is gaining national recognition as a leader in unearthing medical revelations.
Refine. Reshape. Reimagine. Those three words define the University of Houston, particularly when it comes to what the world knows about medicine. And over the past year, UH has been at the forefront of groundbreaking medical research that could change how we tackle everything from cancer and infectious disease to autoimmune disorders and antibiotic resistance.
For example, UH scientists have studied the effectiveness of new drugs like Ibezapolstat, an antibiotic that fights the deadly superbug Clostridioides difficile, or C. diff, which pushes the boundaries of how medicines are delivered and how they work inside the body. This type of work is why UH is gaining national recognition as a leader in unearthing medical revelations.
NEW DRUG,
OLD FOE
While Ibezapolstat was originally developed by Acurx Pharmaceuticals in 2018, university researchers have been instrumental in leading the clinical studies to evaluate the drug’s effectiveness.
C. diff is the nation’s leading cause of death from gastroenteritis, causing an estimated 453,000 infections per year and 29,300 deaths. It causes gastrointestinal illness ranging from diarrhea and abdominal pain to toxic megacolon, sepsis and death.
And over the past few years, the antibiotics designed to fight it, including fidaxomicin and vancomycin, have been waning — until now.
“Both vancomycin and fidaxomicin are associated with emerging antimicrobial resistance. C. diff infection recurrence is associated with increased mortality, decreased quality of life and higher health care costs,” said Kevin Garey, Robert L. Boblitt Endowed Professor of Drug Discovery at the UH College of Pharmacy. “New antibiotics are urgently needed.”
Enter Ibezapolstat, which Garey said has thus far proven to be a promising development. So far, the drug has been able to kill off harmful C. diff bacteria without harming the good bacteria in the gut that protect against C. diff infections.
"For the first time ever in clinical trial drug development, we focused on microbiome changes in healthy subjects given Ibezapolstat and had distinctly different microbiome changes that predicted better success rates."
“For the first time ever in clinical trial drug development, we focused on microbiome changes in healthy subjects given Ibezapolstat and had distinctly different microbiome changes that predicted better success rates,” Garey said. “We were able to show in a mouse model that these microbiome changes were distinct from other C. diff-directed antibiotics.”
LESSONS
IN LUPUS
Tianfu Wu, a UH biomedical engineer in the Cullen College of Engineering, is in the middle of developing a method that will change how we medicate patients with lupus, thanks to a $1 million Impact Award from the U.S. Department of Defense.
Lupus is a debilitating autoimmune disease in which the immune system attacks its own healthy tissues. Patients experience extreme fatigue, joint pain and swelling, rashes and organ damage.
Wu is working on a process that sends medication directly to the spleen, which filters out old or damaged blood cells while housing millions of white blood cells that carry out immune system functions — it’s also where certain immune cells cause lupus.
The plan is to use tiny fat-based particles, or lipid nanoparticles, modified with mannose, a simple sugar, to carry medicine directly to the spleen and target B cells, which are critical immune cells thought to drive lupus.
“The primary aim is not only to advance treatment strategies for lupus, but also to deepen our understanding of lupus pathogenesis,” Wu said. “This innovation will pave the way for treating lupus by targeting organ-specific molecular pathways, recognizing that the same drug target may have opposing roles in different organs, such as the spleen versus end-organs like the kidney, heart or central nervous system.”
"The primary aim is not only to advance treatment strategies for lupus, but also to deepen our understanding of lupus pathogenesis."
INTO THE NEXT
GENERATION
Improving how the world approaches medicine is nothing new to UH — it’s a fundamental part of the culture.
In recent years, research teams led by Navin Varadarajan, M.D. Anderson Professor of William A. Brookshire Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, discovered new ways to prevent and treat respiratory viruses by use of nasal sprays.
The NanoSTING nasal spray is a broad-spectrum immune activator for controlling infection against respiratory viruses, and NanoSTING-SN, a pan-coronavirus nasal vaccine, can protect against infection and disease by all members of the coronavirus family.
And before that, Varadarajan’s team discovered a new subset of T cells that could help improve the outcome for cancer patients treated with T cell-based immunotherapy.
These breakthroughs are not isolated successes; they are the result of a massive, collaborative ecosystem. This vital work is happening daily in labs across the entire university — from the colleges of medicine and pharmacy to engineering and the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics. Whether it is developing mechanistically novel inhibitors for prostate cancer, creating microfluidic platforms for CAR T therapy, or engineering new treatments for vascular disease, UH scientists are working across disciplines to ensure the next generation of medicine is safer, more targeted and more effective than ever before.
Built with Shorthand