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SUMMARY:LMB Seminar: Engineering a bacteria for lung therapy - Prof. Luis 
 Serrano
DTSTART:20230117T110000Z
DTEND:20230117T120000Z
UID:TALK192932@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Scientific Meetings Co-ordinator
DESCRIPTION:Lung diseases are a leading cause of mortality worldwide. Dysr
 egulation of immunomodulatory molecules plays a key role in many pulmonary
  diseases\, including lung cancer\, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) an
 d infections. Systemic treatment with immunomodulatory molecules however\,
  can have several drawbacks and include toxic side effects in other organs
 \, the need for continuous delivery and a high cost of production. Similar
 ly\, treating immunomodulatory repercussions such as telomere shortening o
 r abnormal miRNA expression in target cells is not easy due to the lack of
  a technology that efficiently and specifically delivers RNA. Furthermore\
 , viral transformation can result in toxicity and is associated with high 
 costs. To circumvent these problems\, we aim to engineer the genome-reduce
 d lung bacterium Mycoplasma pneumoniae as a vector to locally express immu
 nomodulatory proteins in the lung. MPN does not have a cell wall\, it dire
 ctly releases secreted biomolecules into the medium\, it does not recombin
 e\, it has a unique genetic code that prevents the transfer of genes to ot
 her bacteria and we have a non-pathogenic engineered version of it.  After
  getting one of the most comprehensive –omics analysis and data integrat
 ion done on a bacteria we have engineered a MPN chassis for human therapy.
  We have shown that our engineered chassis is non-pathogenic in mouse mamm
 ary glands\, intradermal and in the lung and that it can be used to dissol
 ve biofilms made by S. aureus in intradermal catheter as well as to reduce
  mouse mortality in lung infections caused by Pseudomonas aerugynosa.  
LOCATION:In person in the Max Perutz Lecture Theatre (CB2 0QH) and via Zoo
 m\, link: https://mrc-lmb-cam-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/99349389275?pwd=ZHI3em1DQTA0
 VTlVLzkvUTN6ZGkxdz09
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