With increasing resistance of bacteria to commonly available antibiotics, the medical and science communities are stepping up efforts to find more dependable agents to keep harmful infections and disease at bay. With a two-year, $204,756 research grant, Sweet Briar College’s John Beck is exploring a new approach to strengthen antibiotics using medicinal herbs from the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Testing the bioactive components of herbs in conjunction with known antibiotics to find enhanced bioactivity (ability to fight) against bacteria — a process known as “synergy testing” — is in its infancy. “People have done similar research with extracts, but no one that we know of has combined known antibiotics with extracts,” he said. “There is a need for more antibiotics and a way to improve the antibiotics on the market now so bacteria don’t continue to become resistant to them.”

"We think this research will quite possibly find a combination of extracts and antibiotics that would eventually help fight the growing problem of bacterial resistance to antibiotics."
John Beck, SBC associate professor of chemistry

Beck, SBC associate professor of chemistry, is the project’s principal investigator. He is collaborating with Shen-Chieh Chou, Ph.D., a postdoctoral research associate from Taiwan, with recent assistance from SBC chemistry students Molly Everngam ’05, Karina Fernandez ’06, Suzy Harvey ’06, Lauren Martin ’06, and Lisa Wolff ’06.

Beck is excited about the study’s long-range possibilities. “We think results from this research will either spur further important research in this area or quite possibly find a combination of extracts and antibiotics that would eventually help fight the growing problem of bacterial resistance to antibiotics.”

Beck and Chou presented some of the study’s results at the American Society of Pharmacognosy in Corvallis, Ore., in July. The ASP event was an international gathering of scientists working in the realm of bioactive natural products. Beck and Chou also will present at the American Chemical Society meeting from Aug. 28-Sept. 1 in Washington, D.C., which brings a broad array of chemistry professionals from around the world.

The research has three long-term goals, Beck said. They are to a) find effective combinations of herbs and known antibiotics to help fight bacterial infections; b) establish a solid protocol for the isolation and synergy testing of these compounds; and c) expand that protocol to include other herbs and antibiotics. Another long-term goal, he adds, will be to expand the type of biological assays to aid in identifying potential antioxidant or antiviral drugs.

“There is a need to come up with a solution to bacterial antibiotic resistance,” he said. “If we can find a good combination of plant extracts and antibiotics, we may be able to eventually decrease the amount of known antibiotics that the bacteria are resistant to.
This may decrease the bacteria’s ability to develop a resistance to the antibiotics.”

The weakening of antibiotics’ bacterial resistance through longtime use has serious implications in the fields of medicine and pharmacology and has concerned doctors and pharmacists for years. Bob Garland Jr., a veteran pharmacist in Charlottesville, Va., believes addressing this issue is crucial to the future of public health.

“The problem of bacterial resistance to antibiotics is a very real danger, especially in hospitals, but also in the community in general,” he said. “At the present time, we are barely winning this battle, and the future is worrisome at best. Any research that seeks medicinal compounds to assist with this problem should be encouraged and supported.”

Beck’s study began in July 2004 and concludes in June 2006. It is funded through a two-year Commonwealth Health Research Board (CHRB) grant of $152,551 and Sweet Briar’s match of $52,205. Shen Chieh Chou’s two-year participation is made possible through the CHRB grant.

Phase one in the study’s first year focused on herbs known to contain antibacterial qualities. The second phase involves testing previously uninvestigated plants against an even wider array of microbes, such as gram-negative bacteria and fungi. These have a protective cell wall that makes it harder for antibiotics to penetrate. By zeroing in on individual components of different herbs, the team hopes to learn more about specific elements with antibacterial properties and how they interact with other agents.

The primary goal of phase one was to establish a good protocol for synergy testing. The results are promising. “We have found some compounds that show enhanced bioactivity and even mild synergy, but we are not ready to jump up and down quite yet,” he said. “We would like to see some results that really knock our socks off.”

Each component of the herbal extracts that is isolated and identified has the potential to be used in medication form. Beck envisions herbal treatments becoming more widely accepted through this type of investigation, “so it is something to add to the arsenal of current antibiotic treatments,” he said.

This study incorporates a couple of Beck’s longtime passions. Through studying natural products at Colorado State University, he said he discovered a way to “combine a love of chemistry with a love of nature. I’ve always loved nature and after I discovered that I was a chemistry nerd, this was a great way to mix both interests.”

Beck received his Ph.D. in organic chemistry and natural products chemistry at CSU and engaged in postdoctoral research at Virginia Tech. A passionate proponent of organic and natural products chemistry, Beck expanded his herbal medicine pursuits at the University of the Virgin Islands (UVI), where he served as a visiting assistant professor in the 2000-01 academic year. His former UVI colleague Toni Thomas is with the UVI Cooperative Extension Service. She collaborates with Beck in the medicinal herb study by gathering, identifying, and shipping plants such as lemongrass and noni to the Sweet Briar research team.

Chou, who reports to Beck on a weekly and sometimes daily basis, arrived at Sweet Briar in September 2004 with experience in natural products isolation and characterization. In 2003 he received a Ph.D. in natural products chemistry from National Taiwan University, Taipai; and an M.S. in natural products chemistry the previous year from Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung.

Sweet Briar students are also integral to the team’s work. Beck credits 2004 graduate Jamie Heimbegner’s SBC Honors Thesis efforts with providing a preliminary foundation that Suzy Harvey ’06, Lauren Martin ’06, Farzana Sekander ’07 continued to build on through the 2004-05 academic year. Along with Chou and Sekander, Beck’s summer 2005 research group included Ashley Figueiredo ’08 and Cherisse Hoover ’07.

“Jamie was my first student to work on the isolation [of herbal compounds],” he said. “She really set the standard for others to follow and got the most results that others could continue working on.”

Beck gratefully acknowledges the support of the CHRB and Sweet Briar. “Without the enthusiastic support of either one of these entities, this potentially beneficial research would not have happened.”