Have you ever thought that the sea around us can provide sustainable benefits to our economy, other than bunkering, marinas and fish farming? It can, and on a massive scale. The Novel Antibiotic Synthesis and Development for Agriculture and Cancer Therapy (NASDAC) project aims to prove this.
I decided to apply for this grant because global warming is likely to be a serious problem for my children. The sea, a vast and largely untapped resource, plays a crucial role in this innovative project.
The Sino-Maltese collaboration will develop and optimise a microalgae production system to produce complex ‘biologics’, in this first case a peptide antibiotic. It could then be further developed to produce any biological drug in Malta, including cancer drugs such as pembrolizumab (Keytruda) and ulcerative colitis drugs such as adalimumab (Humira), taking advantage of our abundant solar and marine resources while reducing carbon dioxide emissions.
With the global shift in pharmaceuticals to biologics, the various generic pharmaceuticals in Malta will slowly lose more and more market share and jobs. This is one of the ways in which NASDAC can directly help our economy by potentially enabling the establishment of biogeneric pharmaceuticals.
The Chinese-Malta collaboration is developing and optimizing a microalgae production system for the manufacture of complex “biologics,” in this first case a peptide antibiotic.
Our Chinese partner Zhenhui Liu developed the antibiotic peptide from a zebrafish egg yolk protein and optimized its antibiotic effect. Unfortunately, antibiotic resistance develops against most classes of antibiotics. Fortunately, microbes develop resistance to peptide antibiotics much less frequently, some of which are already being tested in clinical trials.
Once we have developed a method that Dunaliella Microalgae (which occurs naturally in our waters) used to produce this antibiotic will be supplied to our Chinese partners to scale up for use in animal farming. The genetically modified microalgae will be engineered with important safety features to prevent survival outside the lab. This ensures that the microalgae will die should they ever be accidentally released into the environment.
Marton Szloboszlay, the senior postdoctoral fellow who Dunaliella work, also had the opportunity to present our research to Maltese children at ‘Kurżita Jiem“, organized at the Esplora Science Centre with another of our researchers, Melissa Formosa.
The original protein had a bone-forming effect on mammalian cells, so Formosa will study the effect of this peptide on bone formation in zebrafish, which could potentially help with osteoporosis. Our partners have also asked us for our expertise to test it for its anti-cancer effects, which Lucienne Vassallo Gatt is currently doing and has already shown some positive results.
The NASDAC (SINO-MALTA-2022-08) project received funding from XjenzaMalta and the Ministry of Science and Technology of the People’s Republic of China (MOST) through the Sino-Malta Fund 2022 (Science and Technology Cooperation).
Pierre Schembri-Wismayer is a doctor, biologist and inventor.
Original Sounds
• Microalgae are currently used in a wide range of applications, including human and animal food, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, bioenergy production, carbon dioxide abatement, nitrogen fixation and wastewater treatment. Among the various microalgae species, Spirulina, Chlorella, Haematococcus and Dunaliella are of greater commercial importance. The former is a blue-green alga or cyanobacterium, a prokaryote, while the others are plants.
• Annual costs for biologic treatments in the United States can exceed $500,000 per patient. Biologics are revolutionizing the treatment of cancer, a variety of autoimmune and inflammatory diseases, and enzyme deficiencies.
Biosimilars – the same drugs made by biogeneric companies – have been shown to be just as effective and can save the UK healthcare system around $300 million a year.
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DID YOU KNOW?
• Between 1998 and 1999, 60 percent of candidates for the Master of Science degree at the University of Malta were women.
• The yellow color of butter often comes from Dunaliella Microalgae.
• Biologics accounted for approximately 48 percent of new drug approval applications submitted to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2023.
• The best areas for algae growth are those that have sufficient sunlight all year round.
• In Europe, Spain and Germany are the largest producers of microalgae.
• The 2019 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that more than 2.8 million antimicrobial-resistant infections occur in the United States each year, resulting in more than 35,000 deaths.
For further information visit: www.um.edu.mt/think
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