Dr. Anders Håkansson, PhD, presented for the Levy CIMAR Monthly Science Lunch on January 27, 2022. His talk was titled: “How HAMLET, a Human Milk Protein, Kills Bacteria and Reverses Antibiotic Resistance.” The image shows a healthy Streptococcus pneumoniae bacterial cell, upper left, next to a bacterial cell destroyed and lysed by the human milk protein complex HAMLET, lower right (Laura R. Marks)

January 27, 2022

Rima Mycynek

Did you know that a human breast milk protein complex called HAMLET can help reverse the antibiotic resistance of bacterial species, including penicillin-resistant Streptococcus pneumoniae and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus?

Lund University’s Anders P. Håkansson, PhD, presented on his work with HAMLET today for our first Levy CIMAR Science Lunch of 2022. His talk was titled, “How HAMLET, a Human Milk Protein, Kills Bacteria and Reverses Antibiotic Resistance.”

Dr. Håkansson is a Professor of Infection Medicine at Lund University in Malmo, Sweden. His laboratory focuses on understanding host-pathogen interactions, with emphasis on respiratory pathogens, using this knowledge to develop novel preventive and therapeutic strategies to protect against bacterial infection. The team’s work focuses on both the factors used by bacteria to establish colonization and cause disease and how this is counteracted by the host inflammatory response to colonization and infection. They are working on several major research projects, including the study of the direct bactericidal activity of a human milk protein-lipid complex against various bacterial species as well as its adjuvant activity in sensitizing bacteria to a broad range of common antibiotics to provide novel therapeutic strategies against respiratory and other infections with antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Watch the talk below.

VIDEO: “How HAMLET, a Human Milk Protein, Kills Bacteria and Reverses Antibiotic Resistance.”