Rate My Professor Jolien Onsea

Jolien Onsea is a research associate in the Unit of Locomotor and Neurological Disorders at KU Leuven within the Faculty of Medicine, associated with the Department of Trauma Surgery at University Hospitals Leuven. She earned her PhD in Biomedical Sciences from KU Leuven, defending her thesis on December 17, 2021. The thesis, titled "Fracture-related infection: optimization of diagnostic principles and the development of alternative strategies for prevention and treatment," was promoted by Prof. Dr. Willem-Jan Metsemakers and co-promoted by Geoff Richards. Her doctoral work focused on improving diagnostics and exploring non-antibiotic treatments for fracture-related infections.

Onsea's research specializes in musculoskeletal infections, with a strong emphasis on bacteriophage therapy for difficult-to-treat cases, including fracture-related infections and orthopedic device-related infections. She acts as co-promotor on major projects such as "Beyond Antibiotics: Alternative Treatments for Difficult-to-treat Infections" (2025-2029) and "New concepts for the management of musculoskeletal infections" (2022-2026). Her contributions extend to bench-to-bedside protocols for phage therapy optimization, combination therapies with antibiotics like vancomycin, and evaluations of diagnostic methods such as tissue cultures and blood culture bottles for infection detection. Onsea has published extensively in leading journals, including "Personalized bacteriophage therapy outcomes for 100 consecutive cases: a multicentre, multinational, retrospective observational study" (2024), "Optimization of bacteriophage therapy for difficult-to-treat musculoskeletal infections: a bench-to-bedside perspective" (2024), "Prolonged disease remission of the chronic immunological phenotype in fracture-related infection" (2025), "Bacteriophage therapy for human musculoskeletal and orthopedic-device-related infections" (2023), "Evaluating the safety, pharmacokinetics and efficacy of phage therapy in treating fracture-related infections with multidrug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus" (2025), "Re-evaluating patient isolation policies for musculoskeletal infections in orthopaedic practice" (2025), and "Combined analysis of host immune response, biofilm genes, and 16S rRNA detection in fracture-related infection" (2026). These works highlight her role in advancing alternative antimicrobial strategies and influencing clinical guidelines through multicenter collaborations like the PHAGEFORCE study group.