Grow Magazine | Marcin Filutowicz stumbled upon a potentially powerful biotherapy—using amoebas that feast on antibiotic-resistant bacteria to cure such ills as staph infections and diabetic ulcers.
Bacteriologist Marcin Filutowicz specializes in developing antimicrobial technologies that one day may help replace antibiotics—and save lives—as the power of our antibiotics arsenal wanes. But he doesn’t stop there. Filutowicz has founded or co-founded three biotech companies to help ensure that his technologies actually make it into the world’s hospitals. The idea for his newest venture, Amebagone, founded this year, sprung from his work investigating a collection of soil-borne amoebas assembled decades ago by UW bacteriologist Kenneth Raper, who is best known for helping ramp up penicillin production in time to save thousands of soldiers wounded during World War II.