Addressing antimicrobial resistance through the design and preclinical evaluation of a Klebsiella pneumoniae vaccine

Antibacterial resistance occurs when bacterial infections become resistant to treatment. It is a serious and growing threat to global health. Klebsiella pneumoniae (Kp) is a bacteria that causes a wide range of infections, particularly in vulnerable populations such as children and immunocompromised adults. Kp can develop multi-drug resistance, which makes finding treatments difficult and increases the risk of severe complications or death. Finding novel treatments for Kp infections is a priority for both the World Health Organization and the Canadian government. Our goal is to develop a vaccine against Kp, which would reduce the incidence of Kp infection for both treatable and untreatable cases, and limit the opportunities for this bacteria to develop even stronger resistance to treatments.
In this project, I will focus on developing a vaccine that targets drug-resistant Kp. First, I need to identify vaccine targets that are present in most drug-resistant Kp infections. Then, I will develop vaccines using those targets. In the next step I will test whether our different vaccines protect mice from lung, bloodstream, and urinary tract infections. With these data, we will move the best candidate vaccine forward to clinical trials.