On Tuesday 6 June 2023, Albert Fuglsang-Madsen will defend his PhD thesis "In situ Antibiotic Treatment: Eradicating Pathogens at the Site of Infection".

Time: 14:00

Place: Building 303A, auditorium 49 & zoom:  https://dtudk.zoom.us/j/62828654369?pwd=bmtFTkQvbnhsbDZZbmVqRURuVmlXZz09

Please be aware that the PhD defense may be recorded - This will also be informed at the beginning of the PhD defense.

Supervisor: Associate Professor Jonas Rosager Henriksen
Co-Supervisor: Co-supervisor, Senior Researcher Anders Elias Hansen

Co-supervisor, Professor Thomas Lars Andresen

Assessment committee:
Associate Professor Martin Dufva, DTU Health Tech

Professor David H. Thompson, Purdue University

Associate Professor Rikke Louise Meyer, Nanoscience Center (iNANO), Aarhus University

Chairperson:
Associate Professor Line Hagner Nielsen, DTU Health Tech

Abstract:
The world's population is growing, and people are living longer. As people get older, they are more likely to experience bone fractures, which means more bone implants are being used. However, people are also getting more lifestyle diseases like diabetes and obesity, which increase the risk of bone infections after surgery or following infected wounds. There are also more people receiving artificial joint replacements, adding to the number of implants and prostheses that can potentially become infected. Bone infections, or osteomyelitis, is caused by microbes, with Staphylococcus aureus being the most common cause. This species of bacteria has evolved a plethora of defense mechanisms against our immune system and antibiotics, making it difficult to get rid of.
Today, potent antibiotics are given orally or intravenously to treat osteomyelitis, but only small quantities of the given antibiotics accumulate at the site of infection. They can cause serious adverse reactions and lead to development of antimicrobial resistance, which further complicates treatment.
To address this problem, a new injectable drug delivery system called CarboCell has been developed. This system can deliver antibiotics directly to the site of the infection, resulting in higher concentrations of antibiotics and fewer side effects.
We showed that the composition of CarboCells can be altered to tune the release rate of antibiotics and we tested the CarboCell system in animal models of implant-associated osteomyelitis and found that it was highly effective. With the best-performing CarboCellantibiotic composition, four out of five pigs that received the treatment were cured without administration of additional antibiotics. This has never been achieved before by other local drug delivery systems in the same pig model. The promising results suggests that CarboCell could be combined with current standard-of-care treatments to increase the success rate of treating osteomyelitis and reduce side effects, in the future.