What we do

Our bedside-bench-bedside research aims to understand how medical device related biofilm infections occur in patients and further, to develop practical strategies to prevent and/or treat these troublesome infections, by crossing the main hurdle of biofilm-related antimicrobial resistance (AMR). The key to the success is to combine research expertise from different disciplines that is needed to inhibit or kill clinical biofilms grown on implanted medical devices. We are one of the few teams that have the capability to comprehensively study clinical biofilms found in patients with implantable medical devices. We use the team’s complementary expertise in microbial biofilms, clinical microbiology & infectious diseases, cardiothoracic surgery & transplantation, and biomedical engineering, to study how biofilms develop on implanted medical devices, cause infection, and spread to deep tissues and/or the bloodstream. The multidisciplinary team will then develop interventions, including novel anti-biofilm agents and surfaces, to mitigate “difficult-to-treat” medical device infections.

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We study clinical biofilms and medical device infections, such as
ventricular assist device driveline infections