Annie Wong-Beringer, an associate professor at the USC School of Pharmacy, has won a $407,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health to study how the overuse of the fluoroquinolone family of antibiotics causes the Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacterium to become resistant and more virulent, leading to poor patient outcomes.

Wong-Beringer’s project looks at the molecular mechanisms that regulate the resistance and virulence of this bacterium – a leading cause of infections in hospitalized patients, those who have compromised immune system and in patients with cystic fibrosis.

By understanding the molecular pathways that govern resistance and virulence in the bacterium, the study aims to identify novel drug targets to disarm this hard-to-treat bacterium.

“If the study bears out our thesis, it will send a strong message to the medical community of the adverse consequences that can happen when some antibiotics are not appropriately prescribed,” Wong-Beringer said about the grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Wong-Beringer believes that the overuse of fluoroquinolone antibiotics plays a big role in the growing virulence and resistance of Pseudomonas aeruginosa. This has contributed in part to more prolonged illness and higher risk of death in affected patients.

“This bacterium presents a formidable challenge for clinicians today because some strains have already developed resistance to virtually all available antibiotics on the market. At the same time, no new antibiotics to combat these resistant strains are being developed in the drug development pipeline in the foreseeable five years,” Wong-Beringer noted.

The National Institutes of Health grant provides support during the early stages of a project that may involve considerable risk but may lead to a breakthrough in a particular area such as the development of novel agents that could have a major impact on clinical research.

“This grant will help my lab address an urgent need,” Wong-Beringer said. “Today’s drug pipeline lacks new drugs targeting this pathogen. Our study is an initial step in the process toward developing novel therapies to attack this virulent bacterium.”

Wong-Beringer, vice chair of the Titus Family Department of Clinical Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Economics and Policy, is the principal investigator on the project, a collaboration with investigators at the medical schools at Harvard University, Yale University and Mercer University.