PNA-Based Rapidly Adaptable Anti-Microbial Nanoparticles

Wound management becomes increasingly challenging due to bacterial infections, especially from epidemic drug-resistant strains. To address this problem, Agave BioSystems proposes to develop a RANT (Rapidly Adaptable Nanotherapeutics) breadboard system built upon the modules successfully established in Phase I of this work. The proposed breadboard system will use genomic sequencing data generated from wound pathogens to identify unknown pathogens and gene targets. These targets will serve as the basis for design of antisense PNA sequences to be incorporated into a PNA-CPP modified DNA nanoparticle. The pathogen-specific, ad hoc-developed nanoparticles are anticipated to possess characteristics of high efficacy, stability and penetration abilities to facilitate effective and specific elimination of emerging drug resistant microbes.