Tuesday, February 17, 2009

It's All in the Wall

Here’s a new way to enhance the cleanliness of hospitals . . . antibacterial plaster! In China, scientists are developing and testing a plaster, which can be mixed into paint, wall coatings, art, etc., that is completely self-sanitizing. This would help sterilize hospitals and reduce the amount of deadly microorganisms that thrive in hospital settings. It is even said to have “more powerful antibacterial effects than penicillin.” This plaster, coined supramolecular plaster, can apparently protect against 5 disease causing bacteria. It can even help control the growth of Staphylococcus aureus and E. Coli better than penicillin. By limiting these deadly bacteria so often found in hospitals, we may be able to reduce and prevent nosocomial infections.

2 comments:

maggie said...

That sounds like a wonderful invention and I'm sure it will definitely bring a lot of benefits to the healthcare community and millions of patients. Do you know what this plaster is composed of that enables it to sanitize against such potent infections without the use of an antibacterial like penicillin?

John Latto said...

The original research paper decsribing this work is here.
here
I was curious about the mode of action but the paper reveals much more about the structure of the plaster than about the sterilizing performance.

The one short paragraph refers to the 'MTT method' for determining the sterilizing effect but the four papers referenced are all concerned with detecting fungi not bacteria.

I may be missing something but the paper doesn't smell right to me. There isn't enough information to judge their remarkable claims of antibacterial activity and that is never a good sign.