A surgical dressing that uses viruses to kill bacteria could stop medical implants from becoming infected before the infection starts. This matters because antibiotic-resistant bacteria already cause tens of thousands of deaths each year in the UK alone, and surgical site infections—especially those linked to implants like hip replacements or heart valves—are notoriously difficult to treat once established. Current prevention relies on antibiotics, which are losing effectiveness. Oxford Silk Phage Technologies is developing a bio-textile material laced with bacteriophages—viruses that specifically target and destroy bacteria. The team will isolate phages against four major drug-resistant pathogens, scale up manufacturing, and test the dressing on a lab-grown skin model. If successful, the prototype would be ready for clinical trials. The potential impact is a non-toxic, infection-preventing dressing that could be used in operating theatres worldwide, reducing the need for antibiotics and cutting the number of revision surgeries caused by infected implants. The project also aims to make phage production cheaper, which would lower a key barrier to wider clinical use.
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Oxford Silk Phage Technologies (OSPT) is developing a disruptive platform technology using bacteriophages to actively prevent medical device and implant infections, a growing concern in the current context of global threatening antimicrobial resistance. Building upon its proof-of-concept work, OSPT will use its bacteriophage bio-textile technology to design and produce a disruptive, non-toxic device actively preventing infections and migration of the most problematic bacteria within wounds. The prototype equipment developed in previous OSPT grants to manufacture the material will here be upscaled to increase continuous production yield for this project and ahead of clinical trial production needs. The lower risk first product will be a stepping-stone for subsequent implantable and more challenging application of OSPT's technology. Collaboration of two bacteriophage expert academic groups at Exeter and Hertfordshire universities will be critical in isolating, selecting and characterising bacteriophages against 4 major drug-resistant pathogens. In parallel, the academic collaborators will develop strategies the render GMP production of phages more cost-effective, significantly reducing future manufacturing costs. Hertfordshire university will also adapt an ex-vivo model of skin to optimise and test the devices ahead of final biological evaluations, which will take the project to clinical trial phase readiness. The final delivery will be prototype devices successfully tested, with a clinical trial dossier and plan for GMP production at IUK-CPI's new microbiome centre.
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