Permanent sterile Oberflächen durch Kombination von antimikrobiellen und Biobelag verhindernden Oberflächenstrukturen

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Karen Lienkamp
• Subject Area: Preparatory and Physical Chemistry of Polymers
• Term: from 2011 to 2017
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 189968166

To overcome the deficiencies of today's antibacterial materials, the aim of this project is to develop long-term sterile polymer surfaces that are simultaneously antibacterial and antibiofouling. While the antibacterial component will kill pathogens, the antibiofouling component will make the surface self-cleaning by preventing irreversible attachment of proteins, cells or cell debris, and thus the formation of a biofilm. To make such surfaces, we need a thorough understanding of how antimicrobial polymer surfaces kill bacterial cells, and how antibiofouling polymers prevent adhesion. Thus, we need to know how each surface parameter (chemical composition, cation type and charge density, hydrophobicity, patch size, layer thickness, grafting density, roughness, wettability, swellability etc.) and each environmental parameter (pH, ionic strength, buffer composition, temperature etc.) influences the surface-cell interaction. Therefore, besides the long-term aim to obtain the perfectly sterile surface, the aim of this project is to increase the fundamental understanding of polymer surface-cell interactions. We follow these approaches: (1) We will identify antimicrobial polyelectrolytes that do not form irreversible complexes with phospholipids, lipopolysaccharide, peptidoglycan, and other cell debris, and use them as the antibacterial component, and (2) We will synthesize nanostructured surfaces from mixed antimicrobial-antibiofouling polymers. Time permitting, we will integrate antimicrobial polymers into layered, enzymatically degradable, self-regenerating surfaces.

• DFG Programme: Independent Junior Research Groups
• Major Instrumentation: Aufrüstung GPC
• Instrumentation Group: 1350 Flüssigkeits-Chromatographen (außer Aminosäureanalysatoren 317), Ionenaustauscher