Immunotherapy: An Alternative to Antibiotics?

Marcos Pires, PhD, assistant professor at Lehigh University, explains the main points behind his research regarding immunotherapy.

Interview Transcript (slightly modified for readability)

“In our research at Lehigh University, we’re working towards making molecules that decorate the surface of the bacterial cells, and they decorate them in a very special way in that they’re being decorated with antigens and the antigens are molecules that recruit antibodies. The idea is that if we’re able to make molecules that go and tag the surface of pathogenic bacteria, and in those tags if we have a way to then attract antibodies, then bacteria should be tagged with antibodies for destruction. At that point, the body has enough information to actually come in and detect bacteria that have been tagged and then go on to actually remove them from the system. That’s the main part of our research: thinking about molecules and designing molecules that are able to operate in this manner.”