Call for papers - Antimicrobial surfaces for medical technologies

Guest Editors:
Abhimanyu Thakur: University of Chicago, Illinois, USA
Vineeth Vijayan: Alabama State University, USA

Submission Status: Open | Submission Deadline: 15 December 2023

BMC Biomedical Engineering is calling for submissions to our Collection on "Antimicrobial surfaces for medical technologies".

Microbial infections pose one of the major risks patients are exposed to during hospital admissions. Hospital-acquired infections have been an element of concern for healthcare facilities for some time now and commonly originate in relation to, among others, surgical procedures and assistive medical devices such as catheters and ventilators. The prevalence of healthcare-associated infections also plays a major role in the development of (multi)drug resistance.

Major efforts have been made towards the development of materials with antimicrobial properties that could be used in hospital settings, both for use as surgical implants and generally to provide surfaces as easily sanitised and resistant to colonisation as possible. A dual approach has emerged: the development of antibacterial coatings to be applied on devices and surfaces and, as more and more information on biofilm formation became available, alternative materials that have inherent mechanical and structural features acting as biofilm deterrent. The emergence of antibiotic resistant bacterial strains seriously compromises the commonly used antibiotic medications. This necessitates the development of antimicrobial surfaces which can efficiently deter biofilm formation and the subsequent cascades of infection caused by different strains of bacteria.

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Meet the Guest Editors

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Abhimanyu Thakur: University of Chicago, Illinois, USA

Dr. Abhimanyu Thakur works as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, Ben May Department for Cancer Research, University of Chicago, Illinois, United States. His research interests include exosome bioengineering, cancer research, biosensing, drug delivery, neurodegenerative diseases, and biomedical applications of machine learning. He has five US patents (In press/Filed)) and his research work have been published in top-tier peer-reviewed scientific journals. His research and academic endeavors have been honored with prestigious awards or grants including UChicago CORE Grant Award, National Science Foundation Funded I-Corp at Polsky, University of Chicago, a Young Investigator Award by American Association for Cancer Research, Korean Cancer Association, Global Young Scientists Summit Award by Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, the Chow Yei Ching Research Award, and Outstanding Academic Performance Award by the City University of Hong Kong, and a Graduate Pharmacy Aptitude Test (formerly GATE) Scholarship by All India Council for Technical Education, New Delhi, India.

Vineeth Vijayan: Alabama State University, USA

Dr Vineeth Vijayan works as an Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Alabama State University (ASU). His research interest mainly focuses on the design and engineering of functional polymeric materials. The application of these functional materials is towards a wide range of biomedical applications which includes but not limited to Tissue Engineering, Drug Delivery, Cancer Theranostic, 3D bioprinting and Cardiovascular Applications. Dr. Vijayan also has significant research expertise in plasma surface modification of polymeric biomaterials. He has published his research findings in 30 prestigious scientific journals. Dr. Vijayan also serves in the editorial board of several international journals such as BMC Biomedical Engineering, Journal of Functional Biomaterials, and Polymers.

About the collection

Microbial infections pose one of the major risks patients are exposed to during hospital admissions. Hospital-acquired infections have been an element of concern for healthcare facilities for some time now and commonly originate in relation to, among others, surgical procedures and assistive medical devices such as catheters and ventilators. The prevalence of healthcare-associated infections also plays a major role in the development of (multi)drug resistance.

Major efforts have been made towards the development of materials with antimicrobial properties that could be used in hospital settings, both for use as surgical implants and generally to provide surfaces as easily sanitised and resistant to colonisation as possible. A dual approach has emerged: the development of antibacterial coatings to be applied on devices and surfaces and, as more and more information on biofilm formation became available, alternative materials that have inherent mechanical and structural features acting as biofilm deterrent. The emergence of antibiotic resistant bacterial strains seriously compromises the commonly used antibiotic medications. This necessitates the development of antimicrobial surfaces which can efficiently deter biofilm formation and the subsequent cascades of infection caused by different strains of bacteria.

This Collection welcomes submissions on the design and implementation of novel materials, devices, coatings and generally surface-related solutions with antimicrobial properties, to be adopted in healthcare settings.

Image credit: AlexSava

There are currently no articles in this collection.

Submission Guidelines

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This Collection welcomes submission of Research Articles, Database Articles, and Software Articles. Before submitting your manuscript, please ensure you have read our submission guidelines. Articles for this Collection should be submitted via our submission system, Snapp. During the submission process you will be asked whether you are submitting to a Collection, please select ["Antimicrobial surfaces for medical technologies"] from the dropdown menu.

Articles will undergo the journal’s standard peer-review process and are subject to all of the journal’s standard policies. Articles will be added to the Collection as they are published.

The Guest Editors have no competing interests with the submissions which they handle through the peer review process. The peer review of any submissions for which the Guest Editors have competing interests is handled by another Editorial Board Member who has no competing interests.