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$1.9 Million NIH Grant Supports Nonantibiotic Therapy for C. difficile
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The NIH has awarded a $1.9 million grant to a University of Texas researcher supporting the development of nonantibiotic treatments for Clostridium difficile infection, according to a press release.
“C. difficile has found multiple ways to survive several antibiotics,” Charles Darkoh, PhD, of the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston School of Public Health, said in the release. “If we can prevent C. difficile from making the toxins and/or make the toxins inactive in the gut without killing the good bacteria, that would be a better treatment option.”
According to the release, Darkoh and colleagues have identified novel nonantibiotic compounds that prevent and deactivate toxins produced by C. difficile infection. The 5-year grant will support preclinical studies identifying the compounds’ inhibition mechanism and testing their efficacy as a combination therapy designed to prevent illness from the multidrug-resistant pathogen.
Charles Darkoh
“C. difficile infection is a growing problem in the United States,” Eric Boerwinkle, PhD, professor and chair of the epidemiology, human genetics and environmental sciences department at the University of Texas Health Science Center, said in the release. “The research proposed by Dr. Darkoh is an innovative first step to quickly identify novel treatments for this condition by focusing on already approved drugs and redirecting them toward this new and important purpose.”
The annual cost to the national health care system for treating C. difficile infection is at least $1 billion, according to the CDC.