Kearney Lab

We are focused on eliminating individual pathogens from a complex microbiota. This is different from broad spectrum antibiotics, which indiscriminately kill bacteria, good or bad. In our technology, we start with an antimicrobial peptide and then fuse onto this a guide peptide which specifically binds to a surface feature on the pathogen. Since our target bacteria are in the stomach or gut, we use probiotic bacteria naturally found in the gastrointestinal tract to deliver the guided antimicrobial peptides via secretion.