Developing new diagnostics for bone and joint infections

The bacterial pathogen Staphylococcus aureus is the main organism responsible for bone and joint infections, in particular those associated with prosthetic joints. Prosthetic joint infections (PJIs) are often very serious, with huge impacts on patients’ quality of life and healthcare systems worldwide. These infections are expected to increase with the number of joint replacement surgeries in the UK predicted to increase by almost 400% by 2035.

The goal of this Medical and Life sciences Research funded project awarded to Ms Ruth Jesujobalayemi Awodipe at Warwick Medical School is to combine laboratory infection models and molecular sequencing methodologies to determine bacterial and host markers that are distinct to S. aureus infected bone cells. This data will be used to identify new markers that will potentially lead to accurate diagnostics for S. aureus bone and joint infections.