Scientists from the UK are waging war on hospital 'superbugs' with a highly effective antimicrobial organo-silver coating

Toby Jenkins and colleagues at the University of Bath have used a plasma to create a simple means to deposit a silver maleimide complex onto three-dimensional objects. An added benefit is that it can be done at room temperature so can be used on plastic and fabric, such as catheters and dressings too. 

'Our system is, to the best of our knowledge, the only one to use plasma to deposit an organo-silver film,' says Jenkins. And as only a small amount of the silver monomer is required to deposit the 30nm thick films so 'it should be easy to scale up for industry users and, most importantly, will be cheap,' he adds.

 Tests indicate that the coating has a much greater efficacy on Pseudomonas aeruginosa (a pathogen know to be implicated in urinary tract infections, dermatitis, and other health problems) than previous silver coatings, as measured by the minimum inhibitor concentration (MIC). However, Madeleine Ramstedt, who works on antibacterial surfaces at Umea University, Sweden, warns against comparing directly with literature values 'because these MICs can differ enormously depending on the experimental conditions.' 

Nevertheless, Jenkins also used a stain that makes live bacteria fluoresce green and dead bacteria fluoresces red, which confirmed the high level of inhibition by the film. Also, the films do not appear to influence mammalian cell growth claims Jenkins. 

The team now plan to carry out further testing with other strains of pathogenic bacteria, including MRSA.

Erica Wise 

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