{"id":8689,"date":"2016-05-02T05:45:37","date_gmt":"2016-05-02T05:45:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/revoscience.com\/en\/?p=8689"},"modified":"2016-05-02T05:45:37","modified_gmt":"2016-05-02T05:45:37","slug":"antibacterial-medical-implants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/antibacterial-medical-implants\/","title":{"rendered":"Antibacterial medical implants"},"content":{"rendered":"

Researchers in Singapore and Hong Kong have created a novel, bacteria-repelling biomaterial that could increase the success of medical implants.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\n

\"A<\/a>
A team of researchers produced a material that not only repelled bacteria but also attracted healthy cells.
source : Chanawit Sitthisombat<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The new material is designed to help healthy cells \u201cwin the race\u201d to a medical implant, beating off competition from bacterial cells and thus reducing the likelihood of the implant being rejected by the body.<\/span>

The failure rate of certain medical implants is high \u2013 around 40% for hip implants \u2013 due to the formation of thin films of microorganisms on an implant when it is first inserted into the body. This prevents healthy cells from attaching and results in the body eventually rejecting the implant, potentially leading to serious medical complications for patients.<\/span>

Reporting their findings in the IOP Publishing journal Biomedical Materials, a team of researchers from the Agency for Science, Technology and Research in Singapore, Nanyang Technological University and City University of Hong Kong produced a material that not only repelled bacteria but also attracted healthy cells.<\/span>

The base of the material was made of multiple layers of water-soluble macromolecules called polyelectrolytes, onto which specific bonding molecules, called ligands, were attached.\u00a0<\/span>

<\/p>\n

[pullquote]Researchers found that a naturally occurring protein building block called RGD was effective at inhibiting the attachment of bacterial cells and attracting healthy cells when it was attached to multilayers of certain polyelectrolytes.[\/pullquote]<\/p>\n

The team tested various concentrations of different ligands. They found that a naturally occurring protein building block called RGD was effective at inhibiting the attachment of bacterial cells and attracting healthy cells when it was attached to multilayers of certain polyelectrolytes. It surpassed collagen in this regard.<\/span>

\u201cThe method we developed helped the host cells win the so-called \u2018race-for-surface\u2019 battle, forming a confluent layer on the implant surface which protects it from possible bacterial adhesion and colonisation,\u201d explains the lead author, Vincent Chan of Nanyang Technological University.<\/span>

Medical implants currently incorporate antibacterial silver coatings. \u201cHowever, the total amount of silver used must be very carefully controlled because high concentrations could kill mammalian cells and become toxic to the human body,\u201d says Professor Chan. By comparison, \u201cthe bio-selective coatings we\u2019ve created do not have this problem, as the materials used are non-toxic and the environmentally sustainable preparation process uses water as a solvent.\u201d<\/span>

\u201cAt the moment this is just a proof-of-concept study, so there is still a long way to go before the coating can be used on implants in a clinical setting,\u201d he adds. \u201cIn future studies we hope to improve the long-term stability of the coating.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The new material is designed to help healthy cells \u201cwin the race\u201d to a medical implant, beating off competition from bacterial cells and thus reducing the likelihood of the implant being rejected by the body.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":8691,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-innovation","category-research"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/3535.jpg",300,200,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/3535-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/3535.jpg",300,200,false],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/3535.jpg",300,200,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/3535.jpg",300,200,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/3535.jpg",300,200,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/3535.jpg",300,200,false],"ultp_layout_landscape_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/3535.jpg",300,200,false],"ultp_layout_landscape":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/3535.jpg",300,200,false],"ultp_layout_portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/3535.jpg",300,200,false],"ultp_layout_square":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/3535.jpg",300,200,false],"newspaper-x-single-post":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/3535.jpg",300,200,false],"newspaper-x-recent-post-big":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/3535.jpg",300,200,false],"newspaper-x-recent-post-list-image":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/3535.jpg",95,63,false],"web-stories-poster-portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/3535.jpg",300,200,false],"web-stories-publisher-logo":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/3535.jpg",96,64,false],"web-stories-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/3535.jpg",150,100,false]},"author_info":{"info":["Amrita Tuladhar"]},"category_info":"Innovation<\/a> Research<\/a>","tag_info":"Research","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8689\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}