Pathogen Specific Antimicrobial Coatings For Fabrics

Antimicrobial treatment of military textile systems is intended to provide enhanced protection to the Warfighter in the field by preventing colonization of harmful bacteria that cause problems such as odor, dermatitis, impetigo, cellulitis, and other skin irritations. Current treatments can impart antimicrobial functionality to textiles; however, they all possess broad-spectrum antimicrobial activity, affecting all skin bacteria. The processing of these compounds is also costly with high environmental impact. Bio-derived antimicrobial coatings offer selective elimination of targeted bacteria without effecting commensal bacteria required for skin health. There is considerable interest in using phages, the viruses of bacteria, to control pathogenic bacterial populations. They can uniquely offer specificity against targeted bacteria. By judicious selection of phages and host matrices, this program will develop robust antimicrobial coatings with high efficacy and bacterial selectivity. The focus of the work will be the validation of phage efficacy and demonstration of large-scale production. Using a novel processing method, a series of phage coatings will be formed and tested against select bacterial colonies. The coating method will offer fast processing speeds for high-volume production at low costs.