Bioinspired
Blood and
Bacteria Repellent Coating for
Medical Devices (VIDEO)
These glass slides were dipped in
Blood to demonstrate the effectiveness of the TLP coating. While
Blood sticks to the untreated slide on the left, the TLP-treated slide on the right emerges entirely clear. (Credit: Harvard’s Wyss Institute)
As Don Ingber, M.D., Ph.D., Founding Director of Harvard’s Wyss Institute stated, “Devising a way to prevent
Blood clotting without using anticoagulants is one of the holy grails in medicine.”*Even
Devices that have*been properly analyzed and engineered to serve their*purpose can run into problems once implanted into the body. Cardiac implants like mechanical heart valves and other
Medical Devices come into contact with flowing blood. This can cause a multitude of problems such as
Blood clotting and*bacterial infection.
To solve this problem, researchers at Wyss took already FDA approved materials and combined them to form a
Coating that repels both
Blood and bacteria. Originally, the idea for this
Coating came from Professor Amy Smith Berylson and her Slippery Liquid-Infused Porous Surfaces (SLIPS) system, a concept inspired by the carnivorous pitcher plant. The
Coating is created in a two-step surface-coating process. Coined Tethered-Liquid Perfluorocarbon (TLP), the process is performed*by adding a mo**layer of perfluorocarbon*and then a layer of liquid perfluorocarbon.
This material has already been tested*
in vivo*where the team implanted tubing and catheters with this
Coating into
Blood vessels of pigs. The results showed **
Blood clots for at least eight hours. Furthermore, when the bacteria*
Pseudomonas aerugi**sa*was cultured on a coated
Medical tube, only one in a billion
Bacteria adhered to the tube.*The scientists even demonstrated*that*the mighty gecko could **t stick to surfaces coated with TLP.
More from from the Wyss Institute:
Bioinspired coating for medical devices repels blood and bacteria…
