“Vaccination as a therapeutic route for recurrent UTIs is being explored because antibiotics aren’t working anymore,” De Nisco said. Recurrent UTI, De Nisco said, is primarily regarded as a women’s health issue, and although it’s common — especially in postmenopausal women — it’s something many women don’t talk about a lot. “Afterward, we talked about my research group’s idea of creating better whole-cell vaccines by preserving antigens in this slow-release depot,” Gassensmith said. Building vaccines against pathogenic bacteria is inherently difficult because bacteria are significantly larger and more complex than viruses. “Showing that this works against recurrent UTI would be a significant breakthrough.”Beyond recurrent UTI or urosepsis, researchers believe the antigen depot method could be applied broadly to bacterial infections, including endocarditis and tuberculosis.