Definitely a hot area. One aspect that has never been clear to me is what the actual public health risks of microbe-contaminated *surfaces* are (outside of health care settings). Is there an actual benefit to having things like doorknobs, etc. be made anti-microbial? Is there a resistance trade-off, like there is in antibiotic drugs?
And by extension -- can we assume that anti-bacterial surface treatments will necessarily be effectively anti-viral? (My reading on this seems to suggest the answer is "not always")
I think when it comes to materials like this the mechanism of action is primarily of a strong acid coming into contact with the membrane of a microbe and causing disruption and death. Things that might negate this would be ion exchange such as with something slightly alkaline (like baking soda+water).
We can think of this in terms of therapeutic index. What kills microbes and viruses in this method would also probably kill human cells, but because the acids are essentially tapped within the polymer I think this keeps it from attacking humans and migrating into the body.
Recharging the material could be done with acid, but doesn't seem to be plausible in practice and maybe a little dangerous (free liquid acids here).
Microbial resistance from what I remember from my former graduate school colleagues is primary driven by the small molecules that enter microbes to kill them from the inside. Soaps and surfactants for I believe function by disrupting the membranes that protect viruses and they eventually cause problems elsewhere (waste water treatment, sewer runoff, etc).
Will be interesting to see if BiaXam ever makes it in the market as a viable material. I suspect material fragility and needing to be recharged may be big barriers to economic success.
Thanks, Tony, nice job. Bringing a technology to a product is really a long journey, the reason why antimicrobial/antivirus products are highly risky might be due to the headache dealing with FDA or EPA, did not work with them directly before, but got involved in a project requiring FDA's approval, it takes years.
Definitely a hot area. One aspect that has never been clear to me is what the actual public health risks of microbe-contaminated *surfaces* are (outside of health care settings). Is there an actual benefit to having things like doorknobs, etc. be made anti-microbial? Is there a resistance trade-off, like there is in antibiotic drugs?
And by extension -- can we assume that anti-bacterial surface treatments will necessarily be effectively anti-viral? (My reading on this seems to suggest the answer is "not always")
I think when it comes to materials like this the mechanism of action is primarily of a strong acid coming into contact with the membrane of a microbe and causing disruption and death. Things that might negate this would be ion exchange such as with something slightly alkaline (like baking soda+water).
We can think of this in terms of therapeutic index. What kills microbes and viruses in this method would also probably kill human cells, but because the acids are essentially tapped within the polymer I think this keeps it from attacking humans and migrating into the body.
Recharging the material could be done with acid, but doesn't seem to be plausible in practice and maybe a little dangerous (free liquid acids here).
Microbial resistance from what I remember from my former graduate school colleagues is primary driven by the small molecules that enter microbes to kill them from the inside. Soaps and surfactants for I believe function by disrupting the membranes that protect viruses and they eventually cause problems elsewhere (waste water treatment, sewer runoff, etc).
Will be interesting to see if BiaXam ever makes it in the market as a viable material. I suspect material fragility and needing to be recharged may be big barriers to economic success.
Thanks, Tony, nice job. Bringing a technology to a product is really a long journey, the reason why antimicrobial/antivirus products are highly risky might be due to the headache dealing with FDA or EPA, did not work with them directly before, but got involved in a project requiring FDA's approval, it takes years.
Really interesting, thanks!