Biotechnology against antibiotic-resistant Campylobacter bacteria

Scientists are working toward the development of a low-cost, sustainable oral vaccine that would be given to chickens intended for human consumption to neutralize the threat of campylobacteriosis, a disease that causes chronic diarrhea caused by Campylobacter bacteria that have become resistant to antibiotics. It is a foodborne pathology that affects health due to the handling and consumption of this contaminated animal. In children under five years old it can be fatal.

Uriel Miralles is a student of the Bachelor’s Degree in Biotechnology at the Faculty of Chemistry, Biochemistry and Pharmacy (FQByF) at the National University of San Luis in Argentina. He and Jeremías Conrado, a mechatronic from the National Technological University (Regional Faculty of Córdoba) in Argentina, promote BioSpi, a venture that aspires to be a company dedicated to biotechnology, with an innovative focus on sustainable biological therapies. Both have proposed solving a zoonosis problem with the development of an oral vaccine for farm chickens.

The meat of this bird is a food implicated in food infections caused by Campylobacter bacteria. «When there are many animals in intensive farming, a proliferation of diseases is generated that are then transmitted to humans, and that is when the problem arises (…) We can take as an example what was influenza A in 2009 and part of the COVID-19 recently,” he explained.

Miralles added that, currently, to resolve similar situations, antibacterial agents are used that have been overcome by the bacteria themselves, generating resistance mechanisms. “This resistance generates a circle that endangers people’s health (…) Our objective is to attack the problem from the root, that is, immunizing the animal against the bacteria (…) The purpose is to combat the disease campylobacteriosis,” he explained. .

Uriel Miralles. (Photo: UNSL Institutional Press)

Spirulina as an inoculation vehicle

Spirulina is a microalgae capable of producing biomolecules. This means that it has the ability to synthesize specific molecules against various pathogens. “With the help of synthetic biology, we aim to enhance this special characteristic and make spirulina customizable to attack this disease.”

The oral vaccine would be in the form of a pill, created with biologically synthesized microalgae with molecules that would directly attack the bacteria that triggers campylobacteriosis. “We are in the initial course of development that involves computational modeling (…) In the coming months we are going to focus on the validation of the technology as such,” said Uriel.

One of the advantages of this technology is that, just as it could carry an antigen against Campylobacter bacteria, the same inoculation vehicle could carry an antigen against Salmonella or other bacteria that trigger different infectious diseases and that come from intensive animal husbandry. . “In the future we could offer this vaccine to treat other bacteria in other animals such as cows and pigs,” he concluded. (Source: Fabiola Gisel Aranda / National University of San Luis / Argentina Investiga)