Alimi says producing synthetic HOCI is easy enough, but stabilizing it is the tricky part. A study published in the Journal of Burns and Wounds in 2007 predicted, "that stabilized HOCl has potential pharmaceutical applications in the control of soft tissue infection." With RUT58-60, Alimi believes he has resolved the issue of stabilization and can bring a new infection solution to the surgery table.

"Imagine a fluid bag on an IV pull that pumps actively into the abdomen when the physician has completed surgery," said Alimi, "Prior to closure of that abdominal cavity, they completely immerse the inside of the abdomen with our drug."


RUT58-60 may represent one of the alternatives to antibiotics described in the National Strategy for Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria. "Until the '80s, we didn't see resistant strains or superbugs developing for maybe 10 years," said Alimi. "But now these superbugs can develop within a year of the antibiotic's release."

Alimi said that depending on the treatment, the risk of contracting an infection during a hospital procedure can be as high as 20 percent. His drug proposes to make surgery safer, but the operating table is not the only place where harmful bacteria can be contracted in a hospital.

Bringing back bacteria

A common health care-acquired infection is Clostridium difficile, a bacteria that triggers severe diarrhea and can be fatal for patients who are already very sick. According to the CDC, C. difficile causes about 250,000 hospitalizations and at least 14,000 deaths in the U.S. every year. Antibiotics are successful at treating about 80 percent of cases, but the remaining 20 percent will have a recurrence of the infection.

Part of what allows C. difficile to run rampant in very sick patients is the lack of bacteria in their gut and an overall imbalance of microflora. Essentially, C. difficile becomes a life threatening sickness when a patient has already been worn down with antibiotics, so treating them with more antibiotics does more harm that good.

A recent press release from United European Gastroenterology says fecal microbiota transplants (FMT) have been effective in curing 90 percent of C. difficle infections, and is now recommended in accordance with European treatment guidelines. A fecal transplant is more-or-less precisely what it sounds like. According to the U.K.'s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, the stool of donors – who are first screened for wellness – is diluted in liquid and the resulting suspension is introduced into the recipient's gut via a nasogastric tube, rectal enema, nasoduodenal tube, or via the biopsy channel of a colonoscope.

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