UCLA researchers awarded $9M contract for study identifiying antibiotic treatment for MRSA

Link: UCLA researchers awarded $9M contract for study identifiying antibiotic treatment for MRSA.

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, has awarded a UCLA research team a five-year, $9 million contract to fund a multicenter study investigating antibiotic treatments for MRSA, a staph infection seen increasingly in communities across the nation that is resistant to antibiotics most commonly used to treat skin infections. The study, to be led by co�-principal investigators Dr. David A. Talan and Dr. Gregory J. Moran, both of Olive View–UCLA Medical Center and the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, will explore whether various off-patent antibiotics for the treatment of uncomplicated skin and soft tissue infections may be effective in treating MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Off-patent medications are those whose patents have expired, allowing any manufacturer to produce them. “The emergence of the new, potentially more infectious and virulent strain of S. aureus in the community, referred to as community-associated or CA–MRSA, has caused serious outbreaks of disease over the past few years,” said Talan, a professor of medicine at the Geffen School of Medicine and chief of emergency medicine and professor of infectious diseases at Olive View–UCLA. “We are hopeful to be able to identify the most effective antibiotic treatment for these infections.”