Combating medical biofilms using alginate technologies with particular reference to treat chronic wounds and other chronic infections

The Biofilm project main objective is to develop medical formulations based on alginate oligomers and alginate modifying enzymes to combat medical biofilms in patients suffering from chronic microbial infections. Biofilm forming pathogens such as Pseudomo nas aeruginosa are surrounded by a protective alginate matrix. This can be disrupted by the attack of designed alginate fragments and alginate degrading enzymes rendering the pathogens more susceptible to antibiotics and antimicrobial agents and at the sa me time enabling the host immune system to destroy them. Pseudomonas aeruginosa is the epitome of an opportunistic pathogen of humans. There is hardly any tissue that it cannot infect if the tissue defences are compromised in some manner, like will be the case in chronic wounds. Other common P. aeruginosa infections will be urinary tract infections, respiratory system infections, dermatitis, soft tissue infections, bacteraemia, bone and joint infections, gastrointestinal infections and a variety of system ic infections, particularly in patients with severe burns and in cancer and AIDS patients who are immunosuppressed. This pathogen is a serious problem in patients hospitalized with cancer, cystic fibrosis, and burns. The case fatality rate in these patien ts is 50 percent. The bacterium is the fourth most commonly-isolated pathogen of all hospital-acquired infections accounting for over 10 percent. The cost of hospital infections is annually approximately 1 billion NOK in each of the three Scandinavian cou ntries, and 1 billion GBP in the UK. The combat of chronic wounds and chronic infections such as in the lungs of patients suffering from Cystic Fibrosis represents globally huge health problems. New efficient treatments like those based on the new Biofilm combat technologies from this project, will represent large savings for the society and big improvements of the standard and length of life for the patients involved.