Polymers could help prevent device-associated infections

The polymers, when applied to the surface of medical devices such as catheters, repel bacteria and prevent them forming biofilms, which have the potential to cause medical-device-associated infections.

According to a statement, such infections can lead to systemic infections or device failure, costing the NHS £1bn a year.

The research at Nottingham was led by Prof Morgan Alexander, along with Prof Martyn Davies in the School of Pharmacy and Prof Paul Williams in the School of Molecular Medical Sciences.

The results of the £1.3m four-year research project, supported by a Translation Award from the Wellcome Trust, were published on 12 August 2012 in Nature Biotechnology.

Researchers believed there were new materials that could better resist bacteria, which meant screening thousands of different chemistries and testing their reaction to bacteria — a challenge that was beyond conventional materials development or current understanding of the interaction of micro-organisms with surfaces.

The discovery has been made with the help of experts from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) — who initially developed the process by which thousands of unique polymers can now be screened simultaneously.