The University’s burn treatment team has appointed a specialist from industry to further progress the development of ground-breaking treatments, as a visiting professor.
Professor Mark Enright has expertise in the use of bacteriophage – viruses that can be used to infect and destroy bacteria – for infection control in burns and wounds.
At a time when the World Health Organisation is increasingly warning of bacteria becoming immune to antibiotics and the dangers of superbugs, researchers are racing to find alternatives.
The research team at Bath currently has funding to develop innovative wound dressings that would contain nano-capsules of bacteriophage, which would burst open when an infection was detected and release a bacteria-destroying virus into the wound.
While it sounds gruesome, the researchers say this is a real alternative to the use of antibiotics.
Professor Enright said: “These bacteriophages are naturally occurring and are safe, as they only ever infect their target species of bacteria.
“They enter their host, reproduce and then burst out, before going on to kill more bacteria. Once all the infection-causing bacteria are consumed the bacteriophages simply die.”
The team's research could help children like Isambard who was burned by a hot drink. Isambard has luckily since made a full recovery.
Professor Enright is the Research Director of AmpliPhi Biosciences since the company’s acquisition of Biocontrol Ltd in January 2011.
Professor Enright first established his own research group at the University of Bath in 2000, after winning a Royal Society University Research Fellowship.
He said: “I am thrilled to be returning to the University and to the city of Bath. It’s a great place in which to carry out this research, with fantastic facilities and a strong working relationship with the South West UK Children’s Burn Centre at Frenchay Hospital in Bristol.”
Project leader Dr Toby Jenkins, from the Department of Chemistry, said: “We have collaborated with Mark and AmpliPhi Biosciences throughout this project, and bringing him into the research group here at the University is an exciting step for our team.
“We’re thrilled to invite him to the Department, and we’re looking forward to working closely with him on further developing the bacteriophage project.”
Professor Enright’s appointment is for a period of three years, during which he’ll be based in the University’s Department of Chemistry.
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