KRASNOYARSK, December 15. /TASS/. Researchers from the Siberian Federal University (SFU) and Krasnoyarsk Research Center (KRC) from the Siberian Branch of the RAS have designed material for healing wounds based on cellulose films, antibiotics, and silver nanoparticles. The development has been announced by the KRC press office.
The research team has created composite thin films consisting of bacterial cellulose, "loaded" with antibiotics and silver nanoparticles. The researchers note that the obtained films can be applied to manufacturing antibacterial wound coatings.
Bacterial cellulose can be obtained from bacteria as a byproduct of their life activity. The properties of bacterial cellulose are similar to those of vegetative origin, but does not cause an allergic response or toxic effect upon contact with living cells and has a nanostructure resembling the structure of human body tissue.
The Chief of the Laboratory of the Institute of Biophysics at KRC Tatyana Volova said that they saturated films with medicinal solutions and dried them out to create wound coatings with antibiotics. The production techniques for coatings with silver nanoparticles were more sophisticated. First, cellulose films were heated in a solution of silver nitrate, then they were frozen, dried out, and pressed under vacuum conditions.
"The films with antibiotics turned out to be more efficient than those with silver nanoparticles when dealing with the suppression of pathogenic microorganisms. However, the coatings with silver are not toxic in contact with cells forming the epidermis. We suppose that such materials can be used for healing wounds including complications caused by pyogenic infection," Volova commented.
According to Volova, to reach the medical application stage of the new material, one should perform tests with animals and scale the whole technology of manufacturing the coating accordingly. The first experiments with animals have been already initiated.