Addressing antimicrobial resistance through the design of a vaccine targeting Klebsiella pneumoniae

Vaccines prevent severe illness and death, and antibiotics treat bacterial infections. Together, they have saved more lives than any other medical interventions of the 20th century. Unfortunately, we've known since the discovery of antibiotics, that when overused or used inappropriately, bacteria develop defenses against antibiotics and the drugs are no longer effective. Antibiotic resistance is now an urgent global health crisis with resistant infections on-track to cause 10 million deaths a year by 2050. One part of the solution is to develop vaccines that target such antibiotic resistant bacteria. Vaccination could prevent transmission of infection, illness, and death, and also reduce the need to use antibiotics, slowing the development of future antibiotic resistance. This project is focused on developing vaccines against the bacteria Klebsiella pneumoniae (Kp), which easily acquires antibiotic resistance and causes a wide range of infections, including those affecting the lungs, urinary tract and bloodstream. Vaccines work by teaching our immune systems how to identify and fight specific pathogens. Previous work in our lab identified 5 antigens (proteins, or small sections of proteins) that are similar in over 1,000 different Kp strains from around the world, which makes them excellent vaccine targets. I will use our established process to identify proteins that are shared across antibiotic resistant strains of Kp. I will use these proteins, in combination with our previously identified proteins, to make a vaccine. I will test how well the vaccines stimulate immune responses, and whether those responses protect against a wider range of Kp strains. Ultimately, a vaccine that protects against antibacterial resistant Kp infections could prevent hundreds of thousands of severe infections around the world.