“Each year, nearly two million people are infected with an antibiotic resistant “super bug” of one type or another. Out of these, 23,000 will die.”

Here’s the wake up call to everyone: Remember getting streptococcus? Remember how rare getting staph infection used to be, and how easy it was to treat it? Many strains of staph and strep are now becoming “superbugs”. Our everyday illnesses now need antibiotics and the ones that needed antibiotics need stronger antibiotics, or they don’t even work at all.

In September, the Centers for Disease Control sounded the alarm:

Unless we stopped misusing and overusing antibiotics, they could become useless against disease-causing bacteria that are becoming resistant to them – evolving into so-called “superbugs.”

One of the most common superbugs is MRSA, a staph infection that kills an estimated 19,000 Americans each year, mostly in hospitals and convalescent facilities.

MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) is known to be difficult to treat with standard types of antibiotics and thus more dangerous. Beyond hospitals and healthcare facilities, places such as locker rooms and gyms, pediatric settings, or military recruits’ barracks among others have also reported cases.

Join us for an exciting presentation by Dr. Liangfang Zhang, Professor, NanoEngineering, UC San Diego, whose research has led to the development of the ‘nanosponge vaccine’. These nanoengineered bio-compatible particles are designed to soak up a dangerous pore-forming toxin produced by MRSA and could serve as a safe and effective vaccine against this toxin. Learn how these nanoparticles could also be effective in detaining several toxins at once and fight other pore-forming toxins from staph to snake venom.