University of Calgary

E.coli treatment

Oct. 30, 2008

Alberta researchers find possible treatment for deadly strain of E.coli

Glen Armstrong

Glen Armstrong in his lab in Microbiology & Infectious Diseases at the Faculty of Medicine.
/ Photo by Chris Kindratsky

The Faculty of Medicine’s Glen Armstrong, working with colleagues at the Alberta Ingenuity Centre for Carbohydrate Science, has discovered a very promising treatment to prevent the serious side effects of the deadly E. coli strain.

E. coli 0157 is currently linked to making more than 200 people sick in Ontario after they ate at a fast food restaurant. The same strain of E. coli also killed seven people in Walkerton, Ontario in 2000, after contaminating the water there.

Armstrong’s lab, working with the ingenuity centre’s director David Bundle and his lab, have developed a drug that binds a naturally occurring protein in the body with the E. coli toxin, preventing it from affecting the kidneys.

People infected with E. coli 0157 can get bloody diarrhea and sometimes kidney failure, and after that they can face death.

Armstrong is the department head of Microbiology & Infectious Diseases at the Faculty of Medicine.


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