MIT student honored for antibiotics work

A Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate student has earned a $30,000 prize for work on destroying drug-resistant bacteria and keeping medical and food-processing equipment sterile.

Timothy Lu, 27, was named winner of the Lemelson-MIT Student Prize on Wednesday for developing processes to attack bacteria strains that increasingly resist antibiotics.

One of Lu's projects involves engineering viruses called bacteriophage that help destroy the mechanisms bacteria use to resist antibiotics. In doing so, a patient needs less antibiotics to fight an infection, reducing any side effects. The process also makes it less likely that drug-resistant strains can survive and dominate bacterial populations, thus extending the life of drugs.

Lu applied some of his work from that project to create a new technique for reducing slimy layers of bacteria known as biofilms that can spread infection after forming on surfaces of medical, industrial and food-processing equipment. Lu's method involves using bacteriophage to penetrate the protective slime layer and kill the bacteria underneath.

"While working at a hospital as part of a graduate course, I saw many patients who contracted new infections due to already-compromised immune systems or equipment that is extremely difficult to keep sterile," Lu said in a statement.

He said his work was drawn by the belief "that there had to be a solution for these infections."

The annual student award, given to an MIT senior or graduate student, encourages scientific and engineering creativity in the name of Jerome H. Lemelson, a prolific inventor.

Last year's winner was Nate Ball, an MIT grad student who developed a battery-powered, handheld gadget to give a person the ability to zoom up a rope as fast as 10 feet per second and quickly scale the side of a building. The device is envisioned as a tool for firefighters and soldiers.