Commercialization of faculty discoveries is on the rise at UNLV, facilitated by a new emphasis on economic development associated with research, according to Thomas Piechota, interim vice president for the recently renamed Division of Research and Economic Development.

“We want to bring greater attention to the important role the university plays in bringing economic vitality and diversity to our community and state,” Piechota says, adding that the university’s workforce development, business startup advising, and private-sector partnerships all support this effort.

“But one of the principal ways we contribute to economic development is by supporting commercialization of faculty discoveries through technology transfer,” he adds.

Technology transfer is the process through which the university’s discoveries, or intellectual property, are transferred to another organization – typically in private industry – for the purpose of development and commercialization. This activity has become increasingly important to research universities across the country as they seek to contribute to economic development in their communities and states while generating a valuable revenue stream. Some notable results of the technology transfer process are Google and Gatorade, both products originally invented in a university setting.

Technology transfer activity at UNLV has increased dramatically in recent years. The university has filed 31 patent applications in the last four years; it has more than 140 research disclosures on file and 14 issued patents listing UNLV inventors. Twenty-seven research disclosures have been submitted in the last twelve months alone.

UNLV faculty have produced a wide variety of intellectual property with great commercialization potential. Here is just one of the most promising projects.

C. diff Prevention

Ernesto Abel -Santos, Chemistry Professor

Imagine the following scenario: You go to the hospital for bronchitis or another ailment. You are prescribed an antibiotic and start feeling better, but you suddenly get severe abdominal pain and uncontrollable diarrhea. You go back to the doctor and learn that you now have a different, secondary infection. The doctor takes you off the bronchitis medication and gives you a new antibiotic that targets the secondary infection. You start feeling relief from the diarrhea, but the bronchitis returns. Now the doctor stops the second medication to start treating the bronchitis again.

This vicious cycle continues and can eventually become very serious, even deadly.

The secondary infection in the above scenario is from the bacterium Clostridium difficile (C. diff). In the United States alone, there are approximately 500,000 cases and 20,000 deaths each year as a result of it. Illness from C. diff typically occurs after use of antibiotics and often affects patients who have suppressed immune systems, many of whom have been in a hospital, nursing home, surgery center, or similar facility where C. diff is present.

However, all hope isn’t lost for those who are exposed to this infection. UNLV biochemistry professor Ernesto Abel-Santos and his team of students believe they have found a potential solution.

The university shares their belief in the value of the treatment and has pursued a patent for his discovery through the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. He also has cofounded Abel Therapeutics LLC to develop a new drug for preventing C. diff. Additionally, he has worked with College of Business entrepreneurship students, who developed a business plan for his company. The team won second place at the Southern Nevada Business Plan Competition.

“There are really only two drugs that treat the Clostridium difficile infection,” says Abel-Santos, who came to UNLV in 2006 from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City. “So after the second relapse, you are basically out of pharmacological options. Other options are not pleasant and include a colectomy, which involves cutting out the infected intestine, or fecal transplantation, which replenishes the good bacteria in your intestinal tract.”

The problem is that while antibiotics kill the bacteria that are causing bronchitis or other infections, they also kill the good bacteria in your body, and that is when C. diff introduces itself.

What Abel-Santos discovered is a compound that basically functions the same way the good intestinal bacteria does: It keeps the C. diff spores from germinating, acting as a surrogate for gut bacteria and thereby preventing infection.

Abel-Santos’ path to this discovery emanated from his research in the area of bacterial spores, anthrax being the most famous. He became interested in bacterial spores after the Sept. 11 terror attacks when letters containing anthrax spores were mailed to several news media offices and two U.S. Senators, killing five people and infecting 17 others.

Clostridium difficile is another bacteria that forms spores. “The problem with these types of bacteria is that when you try to kill them, instead of dying, they form a very resistant structure,” he says.

The resistant spores stay in the environment or body for a long time and, under the right conditions, can germinate, producing toxins and infecting those who are vulnerable.

Abel-Santos studies that germination process. “We want to understand how a dormant spore can detect its environment. It has to be able to figure out when it is sitting on a desk contaminating a surface and differentiate that from when it is inside your body.”

He explains that bacterial spores use signals from the environment to germinate – typically substances found inside the body, such as amino acids and sugars. So Abel-Santos and his team made molecules to mimic the signals that the bacteria use to trigger germination. Once they were able to make compounds that mimic these types of biomolecules, they were then able to make compounds that inhibit them. These inhibitors are then able to block the spore from germinating. If the spore germination is blocked, then the spore passes through the body without producing toxins.

So far, the compound has proven successful in animal models, though his studies continue. Eventually, the team will plan for testing of the compound’s effect on humans, though much work is necessary before that phase of the research is pursued.

Someday, Abel-Santos says, his discovery could be prescribed as a prophylactic measure for those likely to be troubled by C. diff, as the drug is designed to prevent infection rather than treat it.

“The idea is that patients will be given the anti-germinant at the same time as other antibiotics, so that even if they are infected with the spore, this compound will keep the spore from germinating,” he says. “If they don’t germinate, they don’t produce toxins. And once you finish the antibiotic treatment, your gut bacteria are going to come back, which will allow you to stop the antigerminant treatment.”