Technological breakthrough could reduce medical device failure
Published date : 21 August 2012
Article date : 20 August 2012
A new material that is resistant to bacteria and stops biofilm formation has been discovered by scientists at the University of Nottingham, according to a recent study in Nature Biotechnology. The material consists of ester and cyclic hydrocarbon moieties that resist bacteria such as Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli.
When researchers coated silicone with the new material, it reduced the amount of pathogenic bacteria on surface areas by 96.7% compared to the now-available silver hydrogel-coating, in vitro, according to the abstract of the study. Both coatings were equally effective, however, when compared in an in vivo mouse infection model.
The report indicates that the discovery could help reduce infection and medical device failures. The new group of structurally related materials dramatically reduce the attachment of pathogenic bacteria. The technology, developed with the help of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, means that hundreds of materials could be screened simultaneously to reveal new structure-property relationships.
Source: Healio.com: Orthopedicstoday, 14 August 2012 (U.K.)
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Reference: Hook AL, Chang Y, Yang J, et al. Kinematic combinatorial discovery of polymers resistant to bacterial attachment. Nature Biotechnol. 2012. Published online before print August 12, 2012. doi:10.1038/nbt.2316.
