Category: VANGUARD

The super bugs are the plague of modern era. Super bugs are antibiotic resistant bacteria that will cause the death of thousands of people in the future. We need novel tools to sterilize surfaces and medical equipment; we also need novel approaches to defeat bacteria.

Within a collaboration with the University Cattolica, we recently reported in Scientific Reports on a novel “cloak” against super bugs. The cloak is a laser printed surface that includes graphene oxide. The cloak is able to kill the bacteria because the surface mimics the carapace of the Cancer Pagurus (picture above), which is known to repel dangerous organisms, and also uses graphene as a blade that cuts the bacteria (and also wrap and poison them), as in the following picture

The cloak is a novel very effective solution to sterilize surfaces, and our research sheds light on the effect of graphene against bacteria. We report 90% bacteria killing action.

Web release

http://www.graphene-info.com/graphene-oxide-helps-creating-antibacterial-cloack

http://lucbourne.scienceblog.com/74/treating-biofilms-to-an-antimicrobial-cloak/

http://www.pubfacts.com/detail/27710143/The-future-development-of-bacteria-fighting-medical-devices-the-role-of-graphene-oxide