What is the role of surface chemistry and materials science in combating fungal disease?
In my article in Microbiology Australia, I give my perspective on how scientists are transforming surface interfaces into active surfaces through nano-scale surface modifications: On the surface of it: the role of materials science in developing antifungal therapies and diagnostics.
(Work is copyright Bryan Coad, 2014)
I presented this poster at the Australasian Society for Infectious Diseases (ASID) conference earlier this year.
I’m making it available for download for personal/educational use.
Clicking here will link to a PDF download (2 MB) of the full sized poster. The poster is copyrighted and not for reproduction. If you intend to use this work for personal/educational use, please contact me and I will provide a non-watermarked PDF copy.
We have just published another study on polymer brush gradients in Langmuir.
Published in: Bryan R. Coad; Tugba Bilgic; Harm-Anton Klok; Langmuir Article ASAP DOI: 10.1021/la501380m Copyright © 2014 American Chemical Society
This work describes a 3 step method for grafting polymer brushes from any substrate. Subsequent work (which happened to be accepted and published first) shows a 2 step method (see post here).
These two works show good understanding of different systems. First, two different plasma polymer gradients were fabricated based on octadiene/allylamine and ethanol/ethylisobromobutyrate, and polymer grafting was shown for hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA), dimethyl acrylamide (DMA), and poly(ethyleneglycol) methacrylate (PEGMA). Last, we have show in this work gradient brushes grown from silicon wafers, and previously, from plastic coverslips.
I was especially pleased with this work as it gave me an opportunity to work with Prof. Harm-Anton Klok from EPFL in Switzerland. Prof. Klok’s work was an inspiration for me during my PhD and I am very glad to have the chance to work with him in a nice collaboration.
Many thanks goes to him and his student, Tugba Bilgic, for helping me with this work.
Just published communication in RSC Advances.
A new study published from the Mawson Institute and the Wark at UniSA and QUT reveals how a straightforward plasma deposition of an inexpensive compound leads to effective antibacterial surfaces.
Chlorinated surfaces rapidly kill Staphylococcus epidermidis on contact. The action occurs rapidly and there is little difference if the prepared surface is dry, wet or washed.
Read more about this research here.
Just published in RSC Advances, a new paper from work I did with Johan Linden, Mikael Larsson, Bill Skinner, and Magnus Nyden:
Polyethyleneimine for copper absorption: kinetics, selectivity and efficiency in artificial seawater
image copyright Royal Society of Chemistry
The surprising result was that a simple, industrial polymer was so effective at first binding metal ions but then, over time, having a greater affinity only for copper leaving the film to be enriched only in this metal.
Thus, copper can be scavenged selectively from low concentration seawater solutions. This has implications for removal of toxic copper from marinas — an environmental problem caused by leaching of copper from antifouling marine coatings.
One Step ATRP Initiator Immobilization on Surfaces Leading to Gradient-Grafted Polymer Brushes
by Bryan Coad, Katie Styan and Laurence Meagher
Just came out in ASAP (as soon as publishable)
Image copyright the American Chemical Society
Link is here (requires a subscription for full text): http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/am501052d
If you don’t have a subscription, follow this link as a limited number of full text copies are available:
http://pubs.acs.org/articlesonrequest/AOR-CB5HTBqSBR89C48fJEtH