Creative Endeavors/
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Materials
Kill on
hen Anton Nikiforov started working in plasma technology, he had no idea he would end up building systems that could revolutionise infection control in hospitals. It all started in the textile sector, where the adhesiveness of the material is critical to the success of the dyeing process. “With the use of plasma technology, you can modify materials in order to enhance the adhesion for any dye,” explains Nikiforov, who is now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Ghent’s Department of Applied Physics. A relatively simple use of plasma technology, it can be scaled up to industrial applications quickly and easily. Ultimately, Nikiforov and his colleagues were helping their industry partners manufacture hundreds of metres of highly adhesive material per second. He says it was a natural shift into finding more sophisticated uses for the technology. “I wanted to help produce coatings that could be used in everyday life to protect people from disease,” he recalls.
W Medical Device Developments /
www.nsmedicaldevices.com
A multidisciplinary research team from universities across Europe has developed a plasma-based technology that can manipulate the make-up of materials to either prevent bacteria from sticking to them or killing it instantly on contact. Elly Earls speaks to Anton Nikiforov to fi nd out how the system differs from existing methods to create antibacterial surfaces, and how it could be applied in healthcare settings.
contact
Just as plasma technology can modify the surface of a textile-based material to allow dye to stick to it more strongly, it can manipulate how different items in healthcare settings – from masks and surgical instruments to often-touched surfaces – react to bacteria. “Antibiotics are not our future. Today we are using antibiotics that are second or even third generation and bacteria are adapting to that very fast; it’s more and more difficult to develop smart antibiotics that can keep up,” Nikiforov says. “Plasma technology takes a different approach, using direct interaction between the microorganisms and surfaces to either kill bacteria immediately or prevent it from sticking to surfaces. This is definitely something hospitals will need in the future. And not only hospitals, but all of us.”
A cheaper, greener, more flexible method The development of antimicrobial materials has increased significantly in recent years, due to the
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