CREATED ANTIMICROBIAL GLASS
Have you every weekday standing in the road transport to and from work, keeping at the same time for different handrails on buses, trolleybuses, trams and metro. And you did not think of those whose hands were on the same handrail before your? And those porch railing on the stairs, pipes payphone or subway entrance doors, not to mention the constant daily rustling of hands money paper bills?
And then these same hands during a break you take a sandwich and start eating it?
Kim Lewis, newly appointed professor of biology at Northeastern University in Boston, worked with other scientists on this issue, with the goal to weaken our fear of microbial infections. In their research, scientists have developed a protective surface - covalent attachment N-alkylated polymer technology (4-vinyl pyridine) (PVP), which is (only) on the glass surface can serve as a disinfectant component for several types of harmful bacteria, when exposed to it.
Lewis, along with scientists from C. Tiller, Jason Liao and Alexander M. Klibanova found a fairly narrow range of N-alkylated PVP compositions that allow the polymers retain their ability to kill bacteria on dry surfaces. This is the first projected surface, which showed itself in the ability to kill the microbes in the absence of any liquid medium.
Previous efforts aimed at the creation of such surfaces, have failed because, according to the researchers, the polymer chains were not long enough and flexible enough to penetrate the bacterial membrane (protective shell of their cells). Their polymer consists of a long linker that allows the N-alkylated pyridine group poison prevent bacterial protection.
Such surfaces kill 94% of the bacteria (with chemical treatment 99% of the bacteria are killed). The purpose of development is to develop a technology of all surfaces (metal, rubber and glass) capable of killing pathogenic bacteria.
Contact information: Emily Donahue; ed@pr.neu.edu; 617-373-5720; Northeastern University
