Resisting Antibiotic Resistance

Watch this video to see Dr. Viney Ghai, Researcher, Engineering Materials, Chalmers University of Technology, explore how graphene and refrigerator-magnet-inspired technology can be used to combat antibiotic resistance. Learn more about how these materials can be used to kill bacteria without relying on antibiotics.

Transcript

00:00:00 Let's say you have a knife and you can just kill the bacteria. So this is what we are working on. And those knife, you just put a water and whatever the dead bacteria on top of is, it will just flush them away. I am Viney Ghai, and I work as a postdoctoral researcher in Rheology Lab. I'm a mechanical engineer, so I have worked till my bachelor's, I was interested in mechanical, but then I went in India to Bhabha Atomic Research Centre where I was, I will say, that I had a taste of research, what research looks like, and then I went for Masters and PhD, and from there

00:00:36 onwards it's all material science, how the materials will behave. I'm very interested in new materials, what they can do, how we can fine tune those materials to do some things which maybe still to date we are not able to do. The main work which we are focused on is orientation or alignment of nanoparticles. When I say orientation or alignment, that means we have several nanoparticles over here. And, right now researchers or scientists are adding them like salt, like grain of salts to have that recipe. But what we are trying to do is what if we have them in an ordered pattern?

00:01:13 Can we create something which nature is creating? Can we replicate those kind of structures? And if yes, there is a potential out there which we want to explore. I have started working on graphene how we can align those graphenes here. So if you want to see graphene, let us think of a pencil which has a graphite. And this is one of the paper. So if I draw something random on the paper so that means there is so much graphite on the paper right now. So what graphene is graphene is a few layers of graphite. If the number of layers are less than ten we say it’s graphene.

00:01:47 Otherwise it's a graphite. So let me take a tape. So if we put this tape on this graphite and if you peel it off, I think you can see the graphite on the tape. And if we keep on doing I will put second tape and keep on doing this. So it has come on this side also. So if we are keep on doing this process and when the number of layers are reducing here. So we are taking some layers and putting it on this part of the tape. So if those layers are less than ten so that is graphene. If that is one that is one single layer graphene carbon atoms.

00:02:18 So that has those wonderful properties. So this is the easiest way to reach to the graphene. But there are other ways, chemically we can also reach apart from this. You can think of graphene as a paper. As a sheet, like paper it’s very flexible, that graphene is very flexible. It is a two dimensional material. When I say two dimension, that means the one dimension which you can see on a paper, it's very big, but another dimension, which is the thickness of the paper, is very small. Sometimes we didn't notice how thin the paper is,

00:02:47 but look into graphene as a paper. Can we use those to kill bacteria? What we are working on right now is using this magnet. This is a Halbach array. This is a fridge magnet where individual magnets are arranged in order to generate, at the center a very uniform magnetic field. That means the magnetic field over here is like these lines, these papers. And they are going in this way where the arrow is and everywhere these lines are very parallel. So that means if we put any material, let's say this paper,

00:03:18 this is a diamagnetic. So if I put this paper inside, eventually this paper should move automatically in this direction. So similar this is going on in graphene. So if we are putting graphene solution here, graphenes are randomly placed. And when it goes inside the graphene will move to the magnetic field. And then we have this sharp edge coming out of the polymer where the bacteria sit and get killed. So in this case, when we have these kind of blades coming out, the blades are over there for

00:03:51 eternity, so they can keep on killing those bacterias. Let us say antibiotic medicines. So after some time those medicine would not work. Because after that you have to have new research on new antibiotics, how they can kill bacterias. And the bacteria are mutating every day. But let's say you have a knife and you can just kill the bacteria. So this is what we are working on. And those knife you just put a water and whatever the dead bacteria on top of is, it will just flush them away.

00:04:21 And then your knives are again ready to kill. So it's that easy, I would say. So any surface where the graphene sheets are aligned, it is self antibacterial. So that's what we are working on. And we had, I would say, excellent results in that. We are killing more than 99.99% bacteria and that to both gram-positive and gram-negative. That means we can kill almost every type of bacteria on those surfaces. It solves some problems, but we are still working on how we can make it in the industrial scales.

00:04:52 We are now looking forward if there is opportunities to make it even bigger for the industry, and how we can achieve those kind of things. If this goes to industrial level, we can achieve those kind of, dreams that there is no bacteria, at least in those kind of environments where we are very prone to bacteria and there is surgeries and other things going on. So I would say the long term goal is to have these kind of coatings in hospitals or operation theaters, which can solve the problem. Now these papers.

00:21:00 When they are added to a material, they will do a wonderful job. Why? Because these materials has excellent electrical conductivity. Because of their structure. And also excellent, thermal conductivity. And that to anisotropic city, is there. That means the electricity as well as thermal conductivity flows in one direction, not in all directions. If we align those materials, that means we are aligning the electrical, thermal or mechanical properties in a such a way

00:21:30 that in particular way in one direction we will get maximum maybe mechanical, electrical, thermal conductivity where we want. So what graphene is. Graphene is a few layers of graphite. So let's let me take a tape. So if we put this tape on this graphite, and if you peel it off, I think you can see the graphite on the tape. And if we keep on doing I will put second tape and keep on doing this. So it has come on this side also. So if we are keep on doing this process and when the number of layers

00:23:11 are reducing here. So we are taking some layers and putting it on this part of the tape. So if those layers are less than ten so that is graphene. If that is one that is one single layer graphene carbon atoms. So that has those wonderful properties. So this is the easiest way to reach to the graphene. But there are other ways chemically we can also reach apart from this. So that is in the end we will have something like a paper. It's a one layer. Keep on doing this with the tape one layer.