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, and skin irritation. 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 bacteriophages, the viruses of bacteria, as antimicrobials to control pathogenic bacterial populations. They can uniquely offer specificity against targeted bacteria and they can be optimized for maintenance of antibacterial effect in textile coating materials. By judicious selection of bacteriophages and biocompatible polymers, this program will develop robust antimicrobial coatings with high efficacy and bacterial selectivity. The focus of the work will be the validation of bacteriophage efficacy and demonstration of large-scale production. Using a novel processing method, a series of bacteriophage 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.