PHOTO-IASIS · Nanoengineered coatings for visible-light photocatalytic disinfection of medical devices

Nanoengineered coatings for visible-light photocatalytic disinfection of medical devices

Catheter-associated infections from biofilms constitutes the most common nosocomial treat posing an enormous emotional and financial burden to society and healthcare sector. The continuous use and abuse of antibiotics to fight infections lead to antimicrobial resistance in some bacterial strains (the so-called “superbugs”) and constitutes the most serious public health threat termed as “slow-motion catastrophe” with minimal or none essential contribution of antibiotics in treating bacterial diseases. Current therapeutic approaches to fight these infections enables nanotechnology based-strategies including catheter surface design and engineering. The target of these strategies is to eradicate biofilm formation without the use of antibiotics via mostly physical modes of antibacterial action. Photocatalytic metal oxide nanoparticles (NPs), present antimicrobial and antibiofilm efficacy via generated electrons Reactive Oxygen Species ([superoxide anion radicals (O2-●) and hydroxyl radical (OH●)] upon UV irradiation, which are the active species contributing to the mineralization of microorganism cells and inhibiting, therefore, bacterial growth. This concept is quite successful and, in fact, is already applied in outdoor paints, or even surgical instruments for fast sterilization by UV irradiation. However, the use of such nanoparticles for treatments in humans needs to be avoided because UV irradiation, even at low doses, may be harmful for healthy tissues. Therefore, there is an important societal and clinical need to re-engineer polymer-based catheters in order to avoid the formation of biofilms on their surface. The aim of PHOTO-IASIS project is to exploit the potential anti-biofilm capacity of visible light photocatalytic nanoparticles to develop a novel concept of “smart” catheters, that consists of the polymer catheter tube and nanoparticles deposited on them. The engineered nanocoating devices were produced by flame spray pyrolysis that is a nanomanufacturing process with proven scalability and reproducibility. The anti-biofilm performance of the nanodevices has been studied in the absence of any antibiotics against model pathogen microorganisms related to catheter-associated nosocomial infections, both gram-negative (e.g. Pseudomonas aeruginosa) and gram-positive bacteria (e.g. Staphylococcus aureus) along with their corresponding strains that exhibit antibiotic resistance. Overall, this project contributes decisively to the development of sophisticated and novel, nanoscale revolutionary medical devices for the prevention of biofilms on catheters and aiding the fight against antimicrobial drug resistance, the most prevalent public health threat today.

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз