Hospitals around the world spend billions of dollars each year to maintain sterile environments. Every surface, especially in operating rooms, must be kept bacteria-free to prevent the spread of disease and the risk of infection. Scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York have come up with a new approach, instead of constantly cleaning surfaces, that would apply a coat of bacterial-killing paints.

The researchers have developed a coating that combines enzymes with nanoparticles. Enzymes occur naturally in all living organisms to regulate their chemical processes, like digestion or the killing of disease-causing micro-organisms such as bacteria.

"Our focus has been on looking at a technology that allows us to have essentially any surface and make it anti-bacterial or antimicrobial in general, and what we wanna do is essentially use what nature uses."

Dordick says that by attaching enzymes to nanoparticles and then adding them to paint, the researchers have been able to create a bacterial-resistant surface, the team's lab test showed that anti-bacterial paint is far more effective in sterilizing a surface than conventional cleaning.

"Obviously everything has been done in a lab so far. So there is still a translation to commercial side. But in the laboratory, it's quite effective so, for example, if you take this enzyme on the nanomaterial and you contact it with a million cells per milliliter, which is a pretty good concentration, within several hours, you are down to zero. I mean it kills them all."

Dordick believes that commercialization of bacteria-resistant paint is a realistic possibility. The enzymes are naturally occurring, so are easily produced. As for attaching the enzymes to nanopartices on a commercial scale, Dordick says that advances in nanotechnology research should make it possible in about five years. Dordick believes the ability to apply these anti-bacterial paints in coatings will have applications far beyond the world of healthcare; he says the food processing industry where hygiene and cleanliness are essential to food safety could also benefit from this technology.

Ben Gruber, Reuters.