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Antibiotics may soon have an effective alternative in the medical market to assist in the defence against bacteria. Superbugs have already proved some antibiotics useless so this news comes as a welcome breakthrough.
It is actually a “killer coating” with a feature that attracts bacteria akin to a magnetic attraction and then kills them, thereby doing away with the necessity for antibiotics. It has been conceived at Nanyang Technological Univeristy and has already been shown to kill 99 percent of nasties that it comes into contact with. Superior to antibiotics in this respect it has started to be used in contact lenses to prevent infections. Other biomedical products are the follow up stage including instruments for surgery, utensils and even cutlery as the coating is completely harmless to human cells.
The coating is made from dimethyldecylammonium chitosan methacrylate which is a polymer that holds a positive charge acting as a magnetic type of force to attract and draw in bacteria which has negative charge on cell walls. Once the bacterium comes into contact with the new coating, the cell walls are literally sucked into the nanopores, causing it to rupture, killing the bacterium.
The application of the coating onto biomedical objects, such as catheters and implants should hopefully prevent bacterial infections, which is fabulous news as many bacteriums are beginning to build up a resistance to antibiotics - currently the main source patients infections. The research for a broad spectrum antimicrobial coating was first started to find an effective way to manage and fight bacteria and fungi specifically on contact lenses which cause corneal infections that could ultimately lead to permanent vision loss or extensive damage.
The two antimicrobial prototypes (the coating and the liquid solution) have taken a total of five years to research and costs over $800,000 to develop. The aim now is to develop the coating into a safe and proven antibiotic replacement within the next five years. Demand being high for alternatives with the rapid emergence of superbugs.