Project

Multidisciplinary European training network for development of personalized antiinfective medical devices combining printing teechnologies and antimicrobial functionality

Acronym
PRINT-AID
Code
41S02317
Duration
01 January 2017 → 31 December 2020
Funding
European funding: framework programme
Promotor
Research disciplines
  • Medical and health sciences
    • Biomarker discovery
Keywords
3d printing personalized medicine printing technologies
Other information
 
Project description

According to ECDC,over 4 million healthcare-associated infections in the EU cause 37.000 deaths and cost EUR 7 billion/year. Half of them are related to medical devices (i.e., catheters, implants) and 80% of these are related to bacterial biofilms. A recent EC report highlighted the medical device sector's role iin dirving EU economic growth, employing 500K people in 25K companies (80% are SMEs) with annual sales of EUR 85 billion. The strategy to prevent medical device-infections is alteration of the device's surface with antimicrobials. However, current antimicrobialsurfaces don't control bacterial growth in tissue surrounding implants, and only sterilex® regulatory approval in the US as anti-biofilm agent. Participants in this proposal have earlier demonstrated a dramatic in vitro inhibition of biofilm formation by 3D-printing surfaces with antibiotics incorporated into the carrier polymers.this discovery opens new possibilities for printed medical devies that better resist biofilms.Our objective is to setup a new European education platform to guide and inspire young researchers in the intersectoral exploration of innovative routes to counteract microbial biofilms by fabricating anti-infective, tailored. 3D-printed medical devices. Current opportunities for young researchers to receive an structured, inter-sectoral and up-to-date education on personalized medicine and medical devices are marginal, and to our knowledge PRINT-AID is the first ETN set up for this purpose. State-of-the-art printing technologies will be combined with in vitro and in vivo biofilm models and novel tools for data integration/standardization. doctoral training will be performed within a high-quality netork of 12 participants.(5 industrial) from the EU and US. It will include online and face-to-face courses taught by researchers with academic and industrial expertise in biofilms, 3D-printing research, antimicrobials, material science, and drug development.

 
Role of Ghent University
Tom Coenye is involved in WP1, 3, 4 and 5. He is WP leader for WP1 and is the promotor of one and the co-promotor of a second PhD student working in this WP. The main expertise Tom Coenye brings to this project is in the field of bacterial biofilm formation and the evaluation of novel antibiofilm strategies.
 
 
Disclaimer
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Executive Agency (REA). Neither the European Union nor the authority can be held responsible for them.