Fig. 1: Facile Accelerated Specific Therapeutic (FAST) platform from design to delivery of PNA to treat MDR bacteria in less than 1 week.

The FAST pipeline is capable of producing effective therapies against MDR bacteria by combining design, synthesis, testing, and delivery modules. Design (top left corner): The corresponding reference genome of target pathogen(s) is inputted into the PNA Finder bioinformatics toolbox which generates a list of PNA sequences in less than 10 min. Build (top right corner): Promising PNA candidates are synthesized using high throughput, automated solid-phase synthesis chemistry. Purification of the PNA product is done using HPLC and validation is performed through LC–MS. The entire process is completed in less than 4 days. Test (bottom right corner): The purified and verified PNA is tested on clinical isolates within 1 day to evaluate therapeutic potential for monotherapy or combination (with antibiotic (AB)) treatments. Delivery (bottom left corner) Top PNA candidates are delivered to infected mammalian cells by repurposing the bacterial type III secretion system (T3SS) mediated delivery system to clear a secondary (red bacteria) intracellular infection.