PD Dr. Yvonne Achermann

Department of Dermatology, University Hospital Zurich;
Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases, Spital Zollikerberg

University Hospital Zurich
Research Yvonne Achermann
Spital Zollikerberg
ResearchGate
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PD Dr. Yvonne Achermann is a medical doctor specialized in internal medicine and infectious diseases. Since 2008 her scientific focus is on implant-associated infections, mainly prosthetic joint infections. In this field she has been involved in several clinical and epidemiological studies with experts in the field of implant-associated infections (Markus Vogt, Andrej Trampuz, Werner Zimmerli). These projects have resulted in peer-reviewed publications and she received the Award of the Swiss Society of Hospital Hygiene & the Swiss Society for Infectious Diseases in 2010.

After the graduation in Infectious Diseases in September 2011 in Zurich, Switzerland, she was doing a 2.5-year post-doctoral fellowship in the laboratory of Mark E. Shirtliff at the University of Maryland in Baltimore. There she was focused on biofilm infections caused by Staphylococcus aureus and Cutibacterium acnes and has worked on developing a vaccine for the prevention of implant-associated infections caused by S. aureus and C. acnes in various animal models. She was awarded funding by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF) for 3 years.

From January 2015 to June 2021, she worked in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University Hospital Zurich as an attending physician and cared for patients with bone and prosthetic joint infections (PJI), serving as an infectious diseases consultant at the University Hospital Balgrist, Zurich and Clinic Schulthess, Zurich. With the support of the program “filling the gap” by the University of Zurich, she successfully continued her basic research in the field of “diagnostic and prevention of implant-associated infections" in the laboratory of Annelies Zinkernagel and her clinical research in collaboration with the University Hospital Balgrist, Zurich. Since 2020 she has been leading a research group with PD Dr. Philipp Bosshard from the Department of Dermatology with the research project “Photodynamic treatment to prevent and treat periprosthetic joint infections”. The hypothesis is that photodynamic therapy (PDT) improves biofilm eradication through bacterial killing on prosthetic joint implants without altering the materials material (collaboration partner: scientists from the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland). Since August 2021, she has been working at the Hospital Zollikerberg as a senior physician in Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases.