Virginie Papadopoulou
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC·Biomedical Engineering
Chronic wounds affect more than 6.5 million people in the US, and infection is the main reason they fail to heal. The bacteria often grow as biofilms, sticky communities that block antibiotics from getting in.
- Fields
Biomedical Engineering
Microbiology & Immunology
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
chronic wounds
biofilm
wound infection
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jul 2027
What they work on
- Optimize phase-change contrast agents, droplets that turn into bubbles under ultrasound, and therapeutic ultrasound settings to boost antibiotics against biofilms of Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Enterococcus faecalis in vitro.
- Measure how ultrasound cavitation, the vibration and collapse of bubbles, changes drug penetration into bacterial biofilms, to explain how the treatment works.
- Test the ultrasound-plus-antibiotic platform in diabetic mice whose wounds are co-infected with P. aeruginosa and S. aureus, comparing healing, wound closure and bacterial load with standard systemic antibiotics.
- Evaluate whether cavitation activity recorded during treatment can predict early response to therapy in infected chronic wounds.
More about the research
Biofilms also shelter dormant persister cells that can survive drug treatment. As a result, infections come back about 70% of the time, and many diabetic foot infections end in amputation. This project asks whether ultrasound can help antibiotics break through biofilms in wounds.
Why it matters
Patients with chronic wounds, especially people with diabetes and foot infections, face repeated infections, hospital stays and amputations. A non-invasive ultrasound method that helps antibiotics reach bacteria inside biofilms could make existing drugs work better in these wounds. Using cavitation signals to predict how a wound is responding could also help clinicians personalize wound care.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Albert Siryaporn
University of California-Irvine, CA·Microbiology & Immunology
Identify combinations of human histones with the antimicrobial peptide LL-37 and other membrane- or cell wall-targeting antimicrobials that produce the strongest killing and synergy against Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and communities of skin bacteria in vitro.
Mohamadmahdi Samandari
Old Dominion University, VA·Biomedical Engineering
Characterize microneedle-like gelatin drug depots that are printed directly inside a defect, and measure how quickly they release drugs in laboratory experiments.
Thomas Matula
University of Washington, WA·Biomedical Engineering
Expand an animal model of skin and soft tissue abscesses to include MRSA, a drug-resistant bacterium, for testing focused ultrasound treatment.
The school
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: 72 labs on PI Pages, $1.6B a year on research, 523 research doctorates a year.
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