Laser Treatment Defeats Antibiotic-Resistant Pneumonia

Antibiotic-resistant pneumonia kills 4 million people every year, but Dr. Vanderlei Bagnato just found a way to turn the lights on against these deadly superbugs.

The Texas A&M biomedical engineering professor spent decades developing a treatment that sounds like science fiction but works beautifully in practice. His weapon isn't a new drug but something far simpler: carefully targeted light.

Here's how bacteria have been winning the war until now. They've developed an impressive arsenal of defenses, producing enzymes that digest antibiotics, building cell membranes that lock out the drugs, and even ejecting antibiotic molecules after swallowing them. These defenses are evolving faster than scientists can create new antibiotics.

The real problem is that doctors can only use safe amounts of antibiotics. As bacteria get stronger, physicians must prescribe increasingly higher doses to overwhelm their defenses. Eventually, the amount needed to kill the bacteria would also kill the patient.

Bagnato's solution bypasses this deadly escalation entirely. Patients first receive a safe, photoreactive compound through a lollipop for throat infections or an inhaler for pneumonia. Then infrared light passes harmlessly through the body until it contacts that photoreactive substance.

The moment light meets the compound, a precise chemical reaction occurs. Using his training as an atomic and molecular physicist, Bagnato designed the reaction to destroy the bacteria's defense mechanisms: destroying their flux pumps, opening holes in their membranes, and disabling the tools they use to survive antibiotics.

With their defenses down, the bacteria become vulnerable again to safe levels of antibiotics that previously couldn't touch them. What once seemed untreatable becomes treatable again.

The throat infection treatment is already working in Brazil, saving lives today. The pneumonia treatment is moving through development, promising hope for millions facing infections that modern medicine had declared unbeatable.

The Ripple Effect

Bagnato's light-based approach could transform how we fight antibiotic resistance worldwide. Because the treatment targets bacterial defenses rather than the bacteria themselves, it sidesteps the evolutionary arms race that's made traditional antibiotics increasingly dangerous and ineffective.

At 67, Bagnato shows no signs of slowing down. He's founded over 40 companies and earned membership in the Vatican's Pontifical Academy of Sciences, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and the National Academy of Engineering. His research now spans cancer, diabetes, and other pressing medical challenges.

"Each generation has to carry the next without asking for anything," Bagnato says, thinking of his grandchildren's future. Despite the scary challenges ahead, he remains thrilled with each new discovery, turning even his failures into breakthroughs.

Fifty years from now, millions of patients may owe their lives to a physicist who believed light could win the war that antibiotics were losing.