Dustin Williams, CSO of Purgo Scientific, started on the road to the Vetlen Pouch through profound frustration with the state of infection care. As a researcher trying to find better ways to treat bone infections, he’d spent years working to improve antimicrobial coatings. But coatings can only hold a small, finite amount of antibiotic, no matter how powerful—and once the antibiotic runs out, it’s done. It was a seemingly impassable limitation.
Then, Williams, a professor of orthopedic surgery at U of U Health, hit what he calls a “pivotal moment” in his life. He had been thinking about his uncle, who had recently passed, and about the dialysis machinery that had supported him, which had permeable membranes to filter fluid.