Engineering team recognized for breakthrough antimicrobial research
A team of researchers from the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering has produced antimicrobial coatings that have the potential to prevent diseases from spreading on contaminated surfaces. This is a growing problem not only in hospitals but also in schools, offices, airplanes and elsewhere. Led by Virginia Davis, assistant professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering, and Aleksandr Simonian, professor of materials engineering in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, the Auburn researchers mixed solutions of lysozyme, a natural product with antimicrobial properties found in egg whites and human tears, with single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs). Similar to a rolled sheet of graphite, SWNTs, at one nanometer in diameter, are a perfect cylinder of carbon. By using a process called layer-by-layer deposition, the team demonstrated the inability of intact Staphylococcus aureus cells to grow on antimicrobial surfaces. Graduate student Shankar Balasubramanian, whose expertise is in biosensors and antimicrobial materials, and postdoctoral student Dhriti Nepal, whose background is in SWNT-biopolymer dispersion contributed to the project.
Tags: engineering, research, Samuel Ginn
April 24th, 2011 at 4:21 pm
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