Gauri Rao
University of Pittsburgh, PA·Pharmacology
Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a common hospital bacterium that causes deadly pneumonia and bloodstream infections. It naturally resists many antibiotic classes.
- Fields
Pharmacology
Microbiology & Immunology
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
phage therapy
bacteriophages
Pseudomonas aeruginosa
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Mar 2031
What they work on
- Identify which pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic (PK/PD) factors should guide phage selection against clinical Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolates, using static time-kill assays and hollow fiber infection models.
- Develop methods to aerosolize phages for targeted lung delivery and measure how optimized aerosolized phages and phage cocktails reach and act on P. aeruginosa in vivo.
- Build a combined physiologically-based PK (PBPK) and mechanism-based computer model to simulate phage dosing regimens, and validate its predictions with data from human phage therapy patients.
More about the research
Bacteriophages (phages), viruses that infect and kill bacteria, are a possible alternative. Doctors are increasingly using phages for drug-resistant P. aeruginosa as a last resort; more than 20 such cases have been reported at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Results have ranged from cure to no response. In these cases, doses were chosen without knowing how phage levels in the body change over time (pharmacokinetics, PK) or how phages reduce the bacterial load (pharmacodynamics, PD).
Why it matters
Patients with pneumonia or bloodstream infections caused by multidrug-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa have few effective treatment options. This work could give doctors evidence-based ways to choose phages, doses and delivery routes, such as inhaled phages for lung infections. It may help make phage therapy responses more consistent than the current mix of cures and failures.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Andrew Berti
Wayne State University, MI·Microbiology & Immunology
Engineer a universal phage propagation strain of Staphylococcus aureus expressing methylation specificity proteins so that daughter phage DNA is tagged as "self" and bypasses the restriction-modification defenses that limit phage host range.
Daniel J Wozniak
Ohio State University, OH·Microbiology & Immunology
Define how Psl, a secreted sugar polymer of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, suppresses Staphylococcus aureus growth and interacts with S. aureus protein A (SpA), using several complementary strategies.
George Drusano
University of Florida, FL·Pharmacology
Determine dose-response and resistance-suppression targets for newer antibiotics that lack such data, using dose-ranging and dose-fractionation experiments in the hollow fiber infection model, which reproduces human drug concentration profiles over days.
The school
University of Pittsburgh: 83 labs on PI Pages, $1.5B a year on research, 403 research doctorates a year.
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