By Pegeen Hopkins<\/p>\n
Life-threatening fungal infections are on the rise, according to the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases. Hospitalizations rose more than 8 percent a year from 2019 to 2021, and the infections themselves can be hard to treat \u2014 and diagnose. Last year, Seton Hall\u2019s 3B Lab received an extremely competitive grant from the National Institutes of Health for research that could fight fungal infections better. Seton Hall magazine editor Pegeen Hopkins spoke with the head of the lab, Gregory Wiedman, assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, to learn more.<\/p>\n
Tell me about your lab: the 3B Lab.<\/strong> Why is this interdisciplinary work important?<\/strong> You received an NIH grant. What does it entail?<\/strong> What\u2019s next?<\/strong> How do bioengineering and biophysics fit in?<\/strong> By Pegeen Hopkins Life-threatening fungal infections are on the rise, according to the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases. Hospitalizations rose more than 8 percent a year from 2019 to 2021, and the infections themselves can be hard to treat \u2014 and diagnose. Last year, Seton Hall\u2019s 3B Lab received an extremely competitive grant from the National…<\/p>\n
\nThe name reflects my philosophy about the lab\u2019s focus. 3B stands for biochemistry, biophysics and biomaterials. It emphasizes the interdisciplinary nature of what we do. We use techniques from all these disciplines. Our current focus is on addressing infectious diseases; we work a lot with fungi and a bit with bacteria, finding ways to combat them and keep people healthy and safe.<\/p>\n
\nThere was the assumption that once scientists found a drug to treat a disease, that was it, it was solved. What has happened over time is that many microbes \u2014 and even viruses \u2014 change. They respond to what we do to stop them, and they often change in unpredictable ways. So, we need to work with the mindset that these microbes are always going to change. We must keep up!<\/p>\n
\nI came up with the idea with my colleague at Rutgers, Chaoyang Xue, to address what happens when you change the composition of molecules on the outside versus the inside of the fungus Cryptococcus neoformans, which is a leading cause of fungal meningitis. People can encounter it through soil or out in nature. The grant is to develop ways to trap lipid molecules on the outside of the cell to enable people whose immune systems are compromised to better fight off the infection. What our lab has been able to do so far is develop several small molecules called peptides that block a certain enzyme, and what we\u2019re trying to prove is that this stimulates the immune system. Seton Hall alumnus Robert J. Tancer, Ph.D. \u201922, now a postdoc at Rutgers, is helping us do exactly that. In fact, it works well enough in an incubator that we were able to get a patent on it.<\/p>\n
\nWe worked with the National Science Foundation Innovation Corps Program to study the potential market for our peptide. We asked infectious disease doctors and nurses what changes they would like to see in their treatment of patients. We talked to people who understand the financials and to people in insurance to understand how these things would be covered. I hope to apply that new business model, for either the peptide or for other molecules. I\u2019d also like to work with other students and professors who are interested in commercializing their own technologies.<\/p>\n
\nBioengineering and biophysics have gone into the design of membrane-active peptides that can interact with a cell membrane to open holes in it. A former student, Cristina Ventura, was working on a project where we opened the pores of a membrane when shining light on it. This may be useful for drug delivery. And with colleagues at the Universidad de Los Andes in Colombia, we\u2019re looking to see if the molecules can be used for bioremediation to clean up oil spills and water, for example. These are new research areas that we also hope to explore in the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"