Doctoral candidate (PhD student) in the Field of Microbiological and Molecular Diagnostic of Prosthetic Joint Infection of the Hip and Knee

Location: Michael Ogon Laboratory for Orthopaedic Research, Orthopaedic Hospital Speising, Vienna, Austria

Project: “Combination of microbiological and molecular diagnostic approaches to identify microorganisms causing hip and knee prosthetic joint infections and predict their antimicrobial resistance profiles”

Funding agency: The PhD project is part of the European Commission and the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) organization funded “DRAIGON” consortium grant entitled “Diagnosing Infections with Multi-Drug Resistant Microorganisms using AI- powered Genomic Antibiotic Susceptibility Prediction from Long-Read Sequencing Data”

Supervisors: Jochen J. Hofstätter, MD Susana Gardete Hartmann, PhD

Project overview: Prosthetic joint infection (PJI) is a devastating clinical complication following total joint arthroplasty (TJA). Conventional culture methods are still the gold standard for identifying microorganisms in hip and knee prosthetic joint infection (PJI). However, they are known to be time-consuming and technically demanding. The proposed project aims to combine conventional microbiological and molecular strategies to rapidly identify PJI-causative microorganisms and predict their antibiotic resistance profiles. The experimental part of the project will involve the development of standardised optimal growth conditions and improvement of DNA extraction protocols for aerobic and anaerobic bacteria, the use of automated methods to identify pathogenic species and determine their antibiograms, as well as the analysis of the generated data. The outcome of this project will advance and accelerate the diagnosis and treatment of PJI. The potential PhD candidate will be expected to prepare scientific manuscripts describing the findings in relation to the conducted research.