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Updated: Apr 18, 2026

High-throughput Identification of Bacteria Repellent Polymers for Medical Devices
Published on: November 5, 2016
Preventing bacterial growth on implanted device with an interfacial metallic film and penetrating X-rays
1Department of Biomedical Engineering, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA, 01609, USA.
Abstract:
Device-related infections have been a big problem for a long time. This paper describes a new method to inhibit bacterial growth on implanted device with tissue-penetrating X-ray radiation, where a thin metallic film deposited on the device is used as a radio-sensitizing film for bacterial inhibition. At a given dose of X-ray, the bacterial viability decreases as the thickness of metal film (bismuth) increases. The bacterial viability decreases with X-ray dose increases. At X-ray dose of 2.5 Gy, 98% of bacteria on 10 nm thick bismuth film are killed; while it is only 25% of bacteria are killed on the bare petri dish. The same dose of X-ray kills 8% fibroblast cells that are within a short distance from bismuth film (4 mm). These results suggest that penetrating X-rays can kill bacteria on bismuth thin film deposited on surface of implant device efficiently.
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