Infectious diseases, microbial and antimicrobial therapy

Area-wise research

Studying the COVID-19 susceptibility, predisposition to disease severity, outcomes and treatment success rates.
Studying the role of microbiota in the pathogenesis of various diseases and personalized microbial therapy using probiotics and autoprobiotics.
Development of a vaccine to prevent and treat infections caused by SARS-CoV-2.
Innovative vaccines to prevent infectious complications in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Developing new antibiotics to control nosocomial infections based on natural antimicrobial peptides and bacteriophages.
Developing approaches to monitor the formation of epidemic strains of multidrug-resistant nosocomial pathogens during the COVID-19 pandemic and in the post-epidemic period.
Personalized microbial therapy as an approach to the management of medical illnesses (metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes).

Expected results

A unified COVID-19 patient database will be compiled to include the parameters of clinical manifestations, course, laboratory results, including hormone panels, and outcomes of disorders occurring in COVID-19 patients in order to search for predictors, including molecular and genetic ones, and the peculiarities of development, course and outcomes during and after COVID-19 infection.

Structural and morphological changes in organs, including the lungs, heart, central and peripheral nervous systems, pancreas and thyroid, etc., will be analyzed in order to obtain data on the immunohistochemical characteristics of damaged tissues, vasculature and the localization of the virus in cells.

An optimal immunology panel will be developed to assess the severity and prognosis of COVID-19.

The impact of the gut microbiome on the postprandial glycemic response in pregnant women with gestational diabetes will be studied.

The possibility of using autoprobiotics to treat the adverse effects of chemotherapy in patients with hematologic malignancies will be investigated.

In silico modeling of vaccine constructs containing various proteins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus will be carried out. Chemical synthesis of SARS-CoV-2 target genes will be performed.

Preclinical and clinical studies of the vaccine preparation will be carried out: a viral-bacterial vaccine against Streptococcus pneumoniae, combining bacterial antigens and antigens of the influenza virus in a live probiotic vaccine.

A point-prevalence study of respiratory tract colonization with multidrug-resistant organisms in COVID-19 patients will be conducted.

The preparation of the vaccine candidate (a live viral-bacterial vaccine with a hemagglutinin protein modified by bacterial antigens) will be studied for specific activity against influenza virus and pneumococcal infection.

A collection of bacteriophage strains effective against vancomycin-resistant enterococci will be created.

The method of whole-genome sequencing will be tested in the investigation of several acute and chronic epidemic outbreaks associated with glycopeptide-resistant microorganisms, in particular VRE; in genome sequencing of strains of microorganisms that form a "time series" within an acute or chronic outbreak, the genetic variability of mobile genetic elements determining the synthesis of pathogenicity and antimicrobial resistance factors will be studied. The epidemiological efficiency of using the whole-genome sequencing method in the routine practice of microbiological monitoring of hospital strains in inpatient medical settings will be assessed.

Studies will be carried out on the personalized selection of autoprobiotics for cardiac patients with metabolic syndrome based on the results of metagenomic analysis of their microbiota.

A study protocol will be developed and patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease will be selected, who will receive various variants of vaccine preparations (a vaccine preparation based on a recombinant protein containing pneumococcal surface antigens in PSPF vaccine preparation, or a live probiotic vaccine with PSP protein on the surface of a probiotic, or a live viral-bacterial vaccine).

A diagnostic test system based on a set of bacteriophages will be developed to enhance phage therapy, and algorithms for the treatment of various bacterial infections using antimicrobial peptides will be improved.

The possibility of using high-throughput next-generation sequencing (NGS) methods in the routine practice of microbiological monitoring of the in-hospital emergence and spread of hospital strains of glycopeptide-resistant pathogens associated with medical care will be assessed.