As technology plays a greater part in healthcare, more attention is being paid to how device surfaces and materials behave in terms of harboring micro-organisms, according to an article on the Business Solutions website.
The process of developing anti-microbial devices goes beyond using new materials to construct products. Contributing to the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria is also a concern, the article said.
"Antibiotics are developed and tested against microorganisms living in a planktonic or free-floating growth phase. When bacteria attach to surfaces, they begin to communicate, cooperate, and build a structured community … They become profoundly changed and different from that bacteria floating around in a broth, so the antibiotics that we order to kill them have limited effect,” Marcia Ryder of Ryder Science, a medical biofilm research facility, said in the article.
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