Congratulations Andrew Foster

Dr Andrew Foster has been awarded the prise for Best Registrar Paper nationally at the Australian Orthopaedic Associated Annual Scientific Meeting for the project Developing a Bacteriophage Hydrogel for the Treatment of Orthopaedic Infection.

The prize was for best registrar research paper nationally at the Australian Orthopaedic Association Annual Scientific Meeting.

The project was “Developing a Bacteriophage Hydrogel for Treatment of Orthopaedic Infection”.

This project was done while on a medical research fellowship at the AO Research Institute in Davos, Switzerland, as a part of a PhD through the Jamieson Trauma Institute and the Queensland University of Technology.

Concept is to deliver antimicrobials directly into the surgical site to improve the efficacy of treatment while minimising the systemic side effects. Furthermore, the use of bacteriophages in addition to antibiotics has the potential to overcome the challenges with emerging antibiotic resistance and breaking down biofilms that form on the implant surface.

This research is important because over 11,000 patients in Queensland have had an orthopaedic infection in the last 10 years, one-quarter of which were treated within MNHHS. These patients often require multiple additional surgeries, a long course of antibiotic treatment and have cost Queensland Health over $260 million dollars in inpatient costs alone. The bacteriophage hydrogel will translate from preclinical to clinical research with the aim to innovate the current treatment paradigm and improve health outcomes for this complex albeit devastating condition.