UVA medical researchers target narrower uses of antibiotics
April 2025
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story courtesy UVA Health
With antibiotic resistance a continually growing problem, University of Virginia School of Medicine researchers are developing cutting-edge computer models that could give disease-fighting drugs laser-like precision and target only specific bacteria in specific parts of the body.
As it stands, antibiotics kill bacteria indiscriminately. Because the drugs are widely used, increasing numbers of dangerous bugs are growing resistant, threatening one of modern medicine’s most important weapons against disease.
UVA’s new approach, on the other hand, would dramatically limit the frequency with which bacteria are exposed to antibiotics, reducing the chance they could become resistant to them. Further, the approach would represent a significant step forward for precision medicine, allowing doctors to better tailor treatments to individual patients’ needs. Instead of taking an antibiotic that kills bacteria regardless of whether helpful or harmful, patients could be given antibiotics that target specific bacteria causing a specific problem in a specific area of the body.
“Many biomedical challenges are incredibly complex, and computer models are emerging as a powerful tool for tackling such problems,” says researcher Jason Papin, Ph.D., of UVA’s Department of Biomedical Engineering. “We’re hopeful that these computer models of the molecular networks in bacteria will help us develop new strategies to treat infections.”
MORE TARGETED ANTIBIOTICS
UVA’s new approach was made possible by a herculean effort by Papin, Ph.D. student Emma Glass and their collaborators. Working with Andrew Warren, Ph.D., of UVA’s Biocomplexity Institute, the researchers in Papin’s lab developed sophisticated computer models of every human bacterial pathogen with sufficient genetic information available.
Glass then analyzed all those models and identified shared traits among the bacteria. This analysis discovered that bacteria in certain body parts, such as the stomach, tended to share metabolic properties. Basically, where they live shapes how they function. “Using our computer models, we found that the bacteria living in the stomach had unique properties,” Glass says. “These properties can be used to guide design of targeted antibiotics, which could hopefully one day slow the emergence of resistant infections.” The shared similarities among the microbes in different locales could be the Achilles’ heel for harmful bacteria in our bodies.
With further research, doctors may be able to target specific types of bacteria in specific areas, reducing the need for broad-spectrum antibiotics. Putting their computer-modeling approach to the test, Papin and his team have already found that they could inhibit the growth of harmful stomach bugs in lab experiments. That’s a promising sign for the future potential of their computer-modeling approach. “We still have much to do to test these ideas for other bacteria and types of infections,” Papin says, “but this work shows the incredible promise of data science and computer modeling for tackling some of the most important problems in biomedical research.”