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Natural sciences
- Chemical characterisation of materials
- Organic chemical synthesis
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Engineering and technology
- Biomaterials
- Polymer processing
- Polymers and plastics
The prevention and treatment of bacterial infections is a large burn wound care challenge. Commonly used antimicrobial wound dressings are silver-based. These reveal certain drawbacks such as allergic reactions related to silver or local discoloration of the skin, as well as host cell cytotoxicity. Therefore, this project focusses on the development of a wound dressing material which enables the sustained release of antimicrobial peptides (AMP). While AMP show good antimicrobial properties against a wide range of bacteria, they require a stable formulation. Electrospinning and melt blowing will be used to create a nanofibrous wound dressing, as the fiber morphology allows for an excellent mimic of the extracellular matrix. The high surface area also allows efficient wound exudate absorption, as well as enhanced drug delivery. For these wound dressing materials, we propose a silk sericin matrix as it shows great potential for wound healing applications based on its biocompatibility. Conjugation to other polymers is required to obtain a mechanically robust material and to combine the best of two worlds. To this end, different synthetic polymers were selected based on their ability to be processed via electrospinning and melt blowing and their potential controlled release applications. During this project, the materials will undergo extensive testing, ranging from fluid uptake capacity to the evaluation of their antimicrobial properties and biocompatibility.