Locus Biosciences Secures NIH Funding for AI-Designed Bacteriophage Pneumonia Therapy

Locus Biosciences has been awarded an initial $3.3 million contract from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to advance its precision antibacterial therapy, LBP-PA01. This funding supports a Phase 1b clinical trial targeting hospital-acquired and ventilator-associated pneumonia caused by the drug-resistant bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa. If the project meets all clinical milestones, the total award value could reach $28 million over the course of the contract. The company will utilize this capital to evaluate the safety, efficacy, and optimal dosing of their engineered bacteriophage therapy in patients. This trial represents a critical step in addressing infections that have become increasingly difficult to treat with traditional antibiotics. By securing this government support, Locus Biosciences aims to provide a lifeline for critically ill patients in intensive care units where mortality rates from resistant respiratory infections are alarmingly high.

"Partnering with HHS to advance multiple programs under NIAID and BARDA is an exciting evolution for Locus as we deploy our platform to deliver precision antibacterial therapies," said Paul Garofolo, CEO of Locus Biosciences. The company is already working with other federal agencies to solve the global antimicrobial resistance crisis through advanced U.S. based manufacturing and synthetic biology. This collaboration underscores the potential for a new generation of engineered bacteriophage therapeutics.

Central to this development is an AI-driven discovery engine that merges robotics and machine learning to design therapeutic cocktails. The platform experimentally measures millions of phage-bacteria interactions and simulates over a quadrillion potential combinations in silico. This approach allows researchers to identify the most effective genetic configurations for destroying pathogens while sparing the patient’s beneficial microbiome.

The company also employs multimodal large language models trained on genomic datasets to predict how to best engineer phage genomes. This synthetic biology framework allows for the incorporation of antibacterial payloads designed to irreversibly destroy bacterial DNA. This automated workflow compresses years of traditional trial-and-error research into a matter of weeks, allowing for a rapid response to emerging drug-resistant pathogens.

Antibiotic-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa is classified as a serious public health threat by the CDC and is responsible for nearly a quarter of ICU respiratory infections. Traditional treatments often fail due to the bacteria's ability to form protective biofilms on medical equipment like ventilators. Locus’s precision therapy offers a new mechanism of action designed to bypass these defenses and eliminate the root cause of the infection without damaging the surrounding healthy bacteria.