Grant: Collaborative Health Research Projects

This research addresses serious challenge in hospital acquired infections: the prevention of bacterial infections associatedwith ureteral stents. Ureteral stents are commonly used by a urology surgeon in the treatment of kidney stone and ureterproblem associated with cancer, infection etc. Urinary devices account for >80% of hospital acquired infections which aredifficult to treat. In addition to increased mortality, these complications add millions of extra health care costs. Currently,antibiotics are our only method of attempting to deal with these infections, but do not work well due to intrinsic multidrugresistance of biofilms on stent surface. The project is based on the latest breakthroughs at UBC on the development of anovel universal coating method to prevent bacterial attachment and protein binding, and the discovery of novel short broadspectrum anti-bioflim peptides (ABPs). This project will discover and invent novel technologies which can prevent infectionand other stent related complications by developing a novel coating on the ureteral stent surface which will prevent bacterialgrowth, deposition of biological molecules on the stent surface from urine and with excellent biocompatibility. We anticipatethat the technologies developed will help >3 million Canadians who needs urological intervention. The project will establish astrong collaboration among natural science, and medicine, and provide unique HQP training opportunities. The novel antiinfectioncoatings will also provide a general method for preventing infections associated with other medical devices.