Urophage

The ambition of this work package is to give a proof of concept for the treatment of complicated Urinary Tract Infections (cUTI) due to Escherichia coli (E.coli) and Klebsiella pneumoniae (K.pneumoniae) with a personalised phage therapy model.

UTIs (Urinary Tract Infections) are the most frequent infections seen on consultations. They are mainly caused by bacilli bacteria (amongst whom E.coli and K. pneumoniae). UTIs become long-term, or chronic, when bacteria in the urine embed themselves into the lining of the bladder wall where antibiotics and immune cells cannot easily reach them.

They can cause constant inflammation in the bladder, but they do not always show in current urine tests. Over time, changes to the tissue in the bladder wall and the appearance of biofilms make the infection even harder to treat since they became hidden for antibiotics and immune cells. Phages are particularly well equipped to penetrate through biofilms by removing the physical barrier of phage access to bacterial cells, but this activity varies from one phage to another. This project will build from the foundation provided by the successful “Inteliphages” project utilising the characterised phages and bacterial collections to jumpstart the current project. It will also continue to build on the experience obtained with the phagogram, as an automated susceptibility test for phage activity, in the projects “Phagediag” and the EIC Accelerator.

This project will be run together with the Laboratory of Food and Environmental Microbiology (MIAE) of UCLouvain in Wavre, which has the necessary expertise as one of the leading phage laboratories in Wallonia.