Gum disease. While oral pathogens are mostly bacteria, they’re also excellent at evading and even subverting the natural immune response. Considering the likelihood that human diets will continue to contain large amounts of carbohydrates for the foreseeable future, gum disease represents a very large and growing cause of both morbidity and economic burden for people in all economic situations. Targeting key bacterial species or even maladaptive human immune activity could save everyone money, pain, and increase the day-to-day well-being of a majority of humans in perpetuity.
Choosing peptides for targeting bacteria that are good at evading the natural immune response is hard. A combination of phage therapy for the bacteria that you don’t want in your mouth along with probiotics to fill your mouth with desirable bacteria would likely be a better intervention.
Gum disease. While oral pathogens are mostly bacteria, they’re also excellent at evading and even subverting the natural immune response. Considering the likelihood that human diets will continue to contain large amounts of carbohydrates for the foreseeable future, gum disease represents a very large and growing cause of both morbidity and economic burden for people in all economic situations. Targeting key bacterial species or even maladaptive human immune activity could save everyone money, pain, and increase the day-to-day well-being of a majority of humans in perpetuity.
Curious if you have some links for data/calculations on the disease burden?
Also, do we have a reason to believe this is an area where peptide vaccines would be especially helpful?
Choosing peptides for targeting bacteria that are good at evading the natural immune response is hard. A combination of phage therapy for the bacteria that you don’t want in your mouth along with probiotics to fill your mouth with desirable bacteria would likely be a better intervention.