New protection against resistant bacteria

A new mate­r­i­al that pre­vents infec­tions in wounds has been devel­oped by Researchers at Chalmers Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy, Swe­den —  a spe­cial­ly designed hydro­gel, that works against all types of bac­te­ria, includ­ing antibi­ot­ic-resis­tant ones. The new mate­r­i­al offers great hope for com­bat­ing a grow­ing glob­al problem.

The World Health Orga­ni­za­tion describes antibi­ot­ic-resis­tant bac­te­ria as one of the great­est threats to glob­al health. To deal with the prob­lem, there needs to be a shift in the way we use antibi­otics, and new, sus­tain­able med­ical tech­nolo­gies must be developed.

“After test­ing our new hydro­gel on dif­fer­ent types of bac­te­ria, we observed a high lev­el of effec­tive­ness, includ­ing against those which have become resis­tant to antibi­otics,” says Mar­tin Ander­s­son, research leader for the study and Pro­fes­sor at the Depart­ment of Chem­istry and Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing at Chalmers Uni­ver­si­ty of Technology.

Research and devel­op­ment of the mate­r­i­al has been ongo­ing for many years at Mar­tin Andersson’s group at Chalmers, grow­ing in scope along the way, with a par­tic­u­lar focus on the pos­si­bil­i­ties for wound care. Now, the impor­tant results are pub­lished as a sci­en­tif­ic arti­cle in the jour­nal ACS Bio­ma­te­ri­als Sci­ence & Engineering.

The main pur­pose of the stud­ies so far has been to explore new med­ical tech­nol­o­gy solu­tions to help reduce the use of sys­temic antibi­otics. Resis­tant bac­te­ria cause what is referred to as hos­pi­tal-acquired infec­tion – a life-threat­en­ing con­di­tion that is increas­ing in inci­dence worldwide.

Mimicking the natural immune system

The active sub­stance in the new bac­te­ri­ci­dal mate­r­i­al con­sists of antimi­cro­bial pep­tides, small pro­teins which are found nat­u­ral­ly in our immune system.

“With these types of pep­tides, there is a very low risk for bac­te­ria to devel­op resis­tance against them, since they only affect the out­er­most mem­brane of the bac­te­ria. That is per­haps the fore­most rea­son why they are so inter­est­ing to work with.”

  — Mar­tin Andersson

 

Researchers have long tried to find ways to use these pep­tides in med­ical appli­ca­tions, but so far with­out much suc­cess. The prob­lem is that they break down quick­ly when they come into con­tact with bod­i­ly flu­ids such as blood. The cur­rent study describes how the researchers man­aged to over­come the prob­lem through the devel­op­ment of a nanos­truc­tured hydro­gel, into which the pep­tides are per­ma­nent­ly bound, cre­at­ing a pro­tec­tive environment.

“The mate­r­i­al is very promis­ing. It is harm­less to the body’s own cells and gen­tle on the skin. In our mea­sure­ments, the pro­tec­tive effect of the hydro­gel on the antimi­cro­bial pep­tides is clear– the pep­tides degrade much slow­er when they are bound to it,” says Edvin Blom­strand, Doc­tor­al Stu­dent at the Depart­ment of Chem­istry and Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing at Chalmers, and one of the main authors of the article.

“We expect­ed good results, but we were real­ly pos­i­tive­ly sur­prised at quite how effec­tive the mate­r­i­al has proven,” adds Mar­tin Andersson.

Accord­ing to the researchers, this new mate­r­i­al is the first med­ical device to make suc­cess­ful use of antimi­cro­bial pep­tides in a clin­i­cal­ly and com­mer­cial­ly viable man­ner. There are many var­ied and promis­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for clin­i­cal application. 

Startup company Amferia takes the research from lab to market

In recent years, foun­da­tion­al research into the antimi­cro­bial pep­tide hydro­gel has run in par­al­lel with com­mer­cial devel­op­ment of the inno­va­tion through the spin-off com­pa­ny Amfe­ria AB. The com­pa­ny was found­ed in 2018 by Mar­tin Ander­s­son togeth­er with Saba Ate­fyek­ta and Anand Kumar Rajasekha­ran, who both defend­ed their dis­ser­ta­tions at Chalmers’ Depart­ment of Chem­istry and Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing. The mate­r­i­al and the idea, which is cur­rent­ly devel­oped as an antibac­te­r­i­al wound patch, has gen­er­at­ed inter­est around the world, attract­ing sig­nif­i­cant invest­ment and receiv­ing sev­er­al awards. The com­pa­ny is work­ing inten­sive­ly to get the mate­r­i­al to mar­ket so that it can ben­e­fit wider society.

Before the new mate­r­i­al can ben­e­fit hos­pi­tals and patients, clin­i­cal stud­ies are need­ed, which are ongo­ing. A CE mark­ing of the mate­r­i­al is expect­ed to be com­plet­ed in 2022. Fur­ther­more, the wound patch ver­sion of the new mate­r­i­al is under­go­ing tri­als in vet­eri­nary care, for treat­ing pets. The com­pa­ny Amfe­ria AB is already col­lab­o­rat­ing with a num­ber of vet­eri­nary clin­ics around Europe where the hydro­gel is now being tested.