Project description
3D printing of biomaterials with antibacterial properties
The global issue of antimicrobial drug resistance necessitates novel interventions. Biomaterials with antimicrobial properties are emerging as an attractive solution for a wide variety of applications including wound healing and tissue engineering, where persistent bacteria pose a serious health threat. The EU-funded GelPrint project is developing peptide-based antimicrobial or bacteriostatic hydrogels that can be 3D printed. Researchers are exploring lysine-based polypeptides and investigating their antibacterial properties and feasibility to be used in tissue regeneration. The GelPrint printable tissue regenerating platform is highly innovative and has great clinical potential to address nosocomial infections.
Objective
Biomaterials with antimicrobial properties which can be used for wound healing and tissue engineering applications offer high application potential due to the global increase of antimicrobial resistance. While polypeptides own this potential, their integration into a materials platform has not been realised to date. The overall objective of this project is to develop 3D printable antimicrobial or bacteriostatic polypeptide hydrogel materials, which can be employed in tissue regeneration applications to prevent bacterial growth. In particular, the goals include synthesis of sets of cross-linked polypeptide hydrogels based on lysine (Lys) and investigation of their hydrogel properties and 3D printability. Moreover, evaluation, validation and quantification of the antimicrobial properties of the hydrogels as well as the proof of concept demonstration for their feasibility in tissue regeneration will be addressed. The synthesis of these particular copolypeptides hydrogels is highly novel and their exploitation as a printable tissue regenerating platform is timely, of high fundamental as well as clinical impact and considered a new approach. The proposed project is broadly interdisciplinary, as disciplines of polymer chemistry, biomaterials science and engineering, microbiology and in vitro assessment techniques will be combined. The high-level science combined with complementary training will significantly advance the career opportunities of the applicant. Moreover, the excellent match of the applicant`s expertise with the project and the host organisation will ensure a strong transfer of knowledge between all participants. The potential of the proposed project is further highlighted by the possible commercial exploitation of the scientific findings and developments. Finally, it will enable new collaboration opportunities between research groups from different scientific fields.
Fields of science
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- medical and health sciencesmedical biotechnologytissue engineering
- natural scienceschemical sciencespolymer sciences
- engineering and technologyindustrial biotechnologybiomaterials
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesmicrobiology
- medical and health sciencesbasic medicinepharmacology and pharmacydrug resistanceantibiotic resistance
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
MSCA-IF-EF-ST - Standard EFCoordinator
2 Dublin
Ireland