New Centre of Research Excellence
ANZCA Clinical Trials Network investigators are among the team awarded a A$3 million NHMRC grant to establish a new Centre of Research Excellence to advance perioperative infection prevention.
Led by CALIPSO principal chief Investigator, Professor Trisha Peel from Monash University, the Perioperative Infection Prevention Centre of Research Excellence (CRE) will establish a national centre dedicated to developing, evaluating and implementing scalable approaches to preventing infection around the time of surgery.
The CRE will focus on preventing surgical infections and improving recovery after surgery. It will establish continuous hospital-based clinical trials to evaluate new infection-prevention strategies, use secure digital wound monitoring to support earlier detection of infections, and link findings with national surveillance programs.
A major focus will be the development of a continuous perioperative infection prevention platform trial (PROMPT), enabling multiple preventive interventions to be evaluated over time rather than through isolated, stand-alone studies. The program will include both antimicrobial and non-antibiotic strategies.
The CRE will also investigate AI-enabled post-discharge surveillance to improve detection of surgical site infections after patients leave hospital, addressing an important gap in follow-up and surveillance.
Patients and consumers will be involved throughout the research program to help shape priorities, study design and infection-prevention resources, with a strong emphasis on ensuring the research is relevant, practical and translatable into routine care. ANZCA CTN investigators Professor Paul Myles, Professor Tomás Corcoran and Associate Professor Sophie Wallace are chief investigators on the CRE, with Associate Professor Wallace bringing a particular focus on consumer involvement.
The broader investigator team brings multidisciplinary expertise spanning infectious diseases, surgery, infection prevention and control, intensive care, biostatistics and adaptive trial design, implementation science, nursing, health economics, antimicrobial stewardship and consumer engagement. The team also includes expertise across cardiac surgery, obstetrics, orthopaedic surgery and national surveillance, supporting a comprehensive approach to preventing surgical site infection and translating findings into routine perioperative care.
The CRE will also work to address variation in infection-prevention practice and support translation of evidence across metropolitan, regional and remote health services. The new CRE builds on the ANZCA CTN’s longstanding contribution to large-scale perioperative clinical trials and creates further opportunities for collaboration across the network in infection prevention, trial methodology, implementation and translation.
Banner image (L–R): Associate Professor Sophie Wallace, Professor Trisha Peel and Professor Paul Myles.
