Dr. Hesham Abdelbary’s team Awarded $2 Million Ontario Research Fund Grant to Advance Prosthetic Joint Infection Research

Dr. Hesham Abdelbary, has been awarded $2 million in funding from the Ontario Research Fund through the Research Excellence Round 12 competition to lead a research program to develop new approaches for treating prosthetic Joint Infection (PJI) using bacteriophages (phage), bacteria’s natural predator. His team’s ultimate goal is to treat these infections with a single surgery.

An infection around a knee or hip replacement, called periprosthetic joint infection (PJI), is devastating for patients, and the main reason for joint replacement failure. The current mainstay of treating PJI is prolonged antibiotics and multiple surgeries. For patients, this can mean repeated hospitalizations, long-term disability, and significant physical and psychological burden. Quality of life can be severely affected and mortality rates associated with prosthetic joint infection can approach those seen in some cancers.

The Ontario Research Fund investment supports Dr. Abdelbary’s team to design a Single-surgery Multipurpose AntimicRobial ImplanT, known as the SMART implant. This research will combine advanced titanium surface coatings with phages that target infection-causing bacteria and disrupt their biofilm “slime” layer that protects them from antibiotics and the immune system.

Dr. Abdelbary’s team has developed clinically representative animal models to study how infections develop on implant surfaces and how local tissue and immune responses are affected. These models help guide the safest and most effective strategies for delivering phages and antibiotics to infected joints, supporting translation to human patients.

Building on this translational preclinical work, Dr Abdelbary’s clinical research team has been one of the pioneers in Canada to administer phage therapy for treating a patient suffering from prosthetic joint infection secondary to a multidrug-resistant joint infection. The team is now preparing Canada’s first feasibility randomized controlled trial of phage therapy for prosthetic joint infections.

The Ontario Research Fund will support ongoing efforts to help patients in Canada suffering from prosthetic joint infections and positions Ottawa at the forefront to advance phage therapy in Canada.

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