Grants We Funded
Grant applicants for the 2022 cycle requested a total of over $2.9 million dollars. The PSF Study Section subcommittees of Basic & Translational Research and Clinical Research evaluated 115 grant applications on the following topics:
The PSF awarded research grants totaling almost $550,000 to support 19 plastic surgery research proposals.
ASPS/PSF leadership is committed to continuing to provide high levels of investigator-initiated research support to ensure that plastic surgeons have the needed research resources to be pioneers and innovators in advancing the practice of medicine.
Research Abstracts
Search The PSF database to have easy access to full-text grant abstracts from past PSF-funded research projects 2003 to present. All abstracts are the work of the Principal Investigators and were retrieved from their PSF grant applications. Several different filters may be applied to locate abstracts specific to a particular focus area or PSF funding mechanism.
Doxycycline-Coated Silicone Implants Decrease Incidence of Bacterial Infection
Ryan Gobble MD
2018
University of Cincinnati
PSRC/ PSF Research Grant
Breast (Cosmetic / Reconstructive), Tissue Engineering
Silicone breast implants are used in breast reconstruction for women undergoing mastectomy, and infection requires removal of the implant. Patients who fail reconstruction have more pain and a lower quality of life. Doxycycline is a tetracycline antibiotic that has activity against a broad range of bacteria and has been used therapeutically in soft tissue and vascular infections. Our group has developed a novel, cheap, simple, and effective technique for coating doxycycline onto silicone implants. Preliminary studies demonstrate that silicone implants maintain antimicrobial activity in vitro and in vivo. We hypothesize that coating silicone breast implants with doxycycline will decrease the incidence of bacterial infection. We will first demonstrate the efficacy of doxycycline-coated silicone breast implants compared to vehicle-coated controls against bacteria and examine release kinetics from doxycycline-coated silicone implants in vitro. We hypothesize that doxycycline-coated silicone breast implants will demonstrate significant resistance to bacterial colonization compared to vehicle-coated controls and that doxycycline will be stably bound to silicone implants. Next, we will investigate whether doxycycline-coated silicone breast implants prevent infection in vivo. We will use a mouse subcutaneous pocket model of implant infection to examine the effectiveness of doxycycline-coated silicone breast implants in preventing bacterial infection compared to vehicle-coated controls. We will perform bacterial titration studies and temporal studies and confirm stability of doxycycline binding to silicone implants. We will test the ability of doxycycline-coated silicone implants to prevent biofilm formation using MRI and FDG-PET imaging. We hypothesize that doxycycline-coated silicone breast implants will be able to prevent implant colonization and clear local bacterial infections even in significantly contaminated subcutaneous pockets. If the proposed experiments are successful, we will have demonstrated that coating silicone breast implants with doxycycline results in significant antimicrobial activity both in vitro and in vivo. Ultimately, our goal is to perform randomized clinical trials in breast reconstruction patients in order to study the ability of doxycycline-coated silicone breast implants in preventing infections. Coating silicone breast implants with doxycycline in order to prevent infection has the potential to revolutionize breast cancer care.
