We achieved all our goals. All the deliverables have been submitted, the milestones and tasks have been accomplished.
Despite the Covid-19 pandemic, the 15 ESRs have been recruited in the first year of the project (2020). They attended many courses at the host institutions and Network-wide training meetings organized by BIOREMIA Consortium. We organized numerous training events where not only our ESRs but researchers from other institutions and countries were attending: 8 workshops, 1 summer school, 1 winter school, 1 satellite event joint to an international conference and 6 e-Seminars; they included both advanced scientific courses and transferable/complementary skills trainings sessions. All ESRs completed secondments in addition to their research stay at the host institutions. The private/industrial sector was closely involved in the training and research activities.
The project has delivered a wide range of antibacterial materials & coatings with enhanced properties compared to the state-of-the-art materials for biomedical implant applications. Novel materials, from hierarchical nanopatterned and/or nanoporous surfaces through antimicrobial bioactive composites with controlled resorbability and anti-fouling bioresorbable PEG-polymer coatings to complex antibacterial metallic glasses and beta-type low-rigidity Ti-alloys, were developed. All the research results have been achieved through a sustained and enthusiastic activity of the 15 BIOREMIA fellows.
While in the first part of the project we mainly dealt with design, production and processing optimisation of novel materials/surfaces, in the last reporting period the focus was on finalizing the materials property characterization (e.g. mechanical, physical, corrosion- & tribo-corrosion, biodegradability, ion release, etc) and, especially, on biological and microbiological testing as well as on industrial aspects.
A number of ESRs have used in-vitro testing (antimicrobial and host cell interactions) as a characterisation tool for the novel materials, while others have developed state-of-the art in-vitro testing methods. Our ESRs were able to create reproducible screening protocols to assess the bactericidal properties of materials using viable colony counting, microtiter-plate reading, and confocal-laser scanning microscopy.
Regarding industrial aspects, the evaluation of scaling-up and implementing the various materials (metallic, polymers, composites) and technologies developed through the project was undertaken, especially by ‘industrial’ ESRs. They were capable to explore the effects of several scalable approaches such as industrial injection or machining on the performance of specimen that were of representative sizes for dental implants. Pragmatic approaches to circumvent corrosion risks were implemented. Considerable activities towards the micro-patterning of metallic glasses surface were performed and demonstrated the feasibility of contact killing on micropillars. A promising manufacturing technique of studied metallic materials is 3D-printing that can be implemented by industrial partners for some small medical devices. Encouraging and promising experimental results in polymer syntheses, coating procedures and biofilm characterization, have facilitated a broadening of the application for PEGylated bioresorbable polymers and future commercialization will include anti-fouling and anti-bacterial global markets.
The project results are incorporated in ESRs’ PhD theses and have been presented in more than 50 prestigious international conferences. Our ESRs wrote more than 30 peer-reviewed articles in high-impact scientific journals.
BIOREMIA website and social media channels significantly contributed for the spreading of project news.
