Project

The project focusses on the development of antimicrobial bioceramics. Bacterial bone infections are one of the great challenges of orthopaedic and maxillofacial surgery, aggravated by antibiotic resistance, a serious health threat responsible for more thatn 2 milion deaths per year. The recent discovery of the bactericidal properties of some naturally occurring surface topographies has opened a new avenue of research. However, there is incomplete knowledge of the mechanisms of action and too many unanswered questions to translate these advances into clinical use. BAMBBI aims to tackle this challenge by developing synthetic bone grafts featuring contact-based antimicrobial properties, adding antimicrobial activity to their capacity to support bone regeneration. We expect to be able to unveil the causes of the substantial differences in bactericidal efficacy of a given substrate for different bacteria and design more efficient antibacterial surfaces.

In addition to being a major breakthrough in the field of bone regeneration, the progress in new methods of fine-tuning the nanostructure of bioceramic surfaces is expected to have an impact in very diverse fields such as catalysis, water purification and protein separation.