The researchers drew on certain interconnections between polymers’ chemical composition and properties, specifically their antimicrobial activity and water solubility. Their work is said to have resulted in a few dozen new compounds based on polyethyleneimine, a synthetic polymer, and also in a series of new coatings based on the compounds.
In experiments, the scientists took a Petri dish (a flat vessel biologists use to culture cells) and put on it their new polymer coatings. Then they cultivated on its walls two types of pathogenic germs: S. aureus and P. aeruginosa. They also did likewise with another Petri dish that had no coatings on its walls. As the researchers found out, the dish that bore the new coatings had on its different parts between a thousand and a million times fewer bacteria on its walls than the other dish without the coatings.
The project results may have wide applications. For example, they would be valuable in developing medical implants that need to have surfaces highly resistant to the formation of biofilm, or huge bacteria colonies. Also, the scientists believe the new coatings would help develop materials that would have unique properties such as the surface absorption of microbes and cyanobacteria (cyanophyta). The latter could be used to sanitize ponds, lakes and small rivers in cities, for example.
