Potential Preventive tool for Hospital Acquired Infection (HAI)

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Hospital acquired infections (HAI) are a significant cause of more than 2 million cases per year, with some 88,000 deaths around the world.  A HAI occurs usually 3 days after a patient is admitted to a hospital or other health-care facility.  HAI can be caused by bacteria, viruses, fungi, or parasites.  The infection acquired in a hospital setting is commonly caused by specific bacterial organisms, such as staphylococci, and P. aeruginosa. Usually these infections occur when the bacteria present in hospital develop in the patient’s skin, respiratory tract, and genitourinary tract, leading to blood stream infections.

Despite strict cleaning procedure, skin and nasal disease causing organisms (pathogens) seems to gain access to the blood stream more easily than others.  This results in lengthened hospital stays.  Current approaches to eliminate risks of infections are limiting and infections in the blood stream must be treated with aggressive antibiotic before severe illness develops.

An OMAFRA-funded research with Anthony M. Jevnikar, a Chief Scientific Officer at the Plantigen Inc. is developing a plant based system to produce antibodies for use in the prevention and treatment of human disease caused by skin born bacteria.  The study will use the tobacco plant to produce high value antibodies for use in the prevention of HAI caused by specific bacteria.  This study will then use that as a template system to prevent serious infections caused by skin pathogens by using a topical applied preventive strategy.

Topical application of antibodies is simple and would also limit wound infection and the spread of skin bacteria to the blood.  This cost effective method of producing antibodies could be a major solution to preventing infections.  This study has huge benefits to the economy by reducing health care cost, and opportunities for both business and agriculture by the production, development and market of these new products.

This OMAFRA-funded project in partnership with Plantigen Inc. and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) will produce a potentially high-value product that could have a wide application within society.

In addition to the support from OMAFRA, this study also receives support from London Health Sciences Centre, AAFC, Lawson Health Research Institute.

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