NOVEL ANTIMICROBIAL TREATMENT IN BURN GRAFT BIOMATERIALS

Collagen based biosynthetic materials have profoundly improved the outcome of reconstruction and restoration of congenital defects and traumatic injuries. This has been most apparent for massive burn victims that historically suffered lifelong severe scarring and lost of function following wound closure before the advent of these materials. Unfortunately the failure rate for biosynthetic implants is high, predominantly due to infection. This proposal intends to evaluate the feasibility of incorporating a silver technology directly into collagen biosynthetic scaffolding to impart short duration antimicrobial properties to prevent colonization during the first few critical days following surgical implantation. Currently, collagen implant failure rates exceeding 50 percent due to microbial growth lead to increased hospital stay, cause psychological distress to the patient, and retard healing and rehabilitation. In burns alone, over 51,000 Americans suffer could benefit from improvements in this material with additional benefits extending to plastic and reconstructive surgical applications that are increasingly using biosynthetic implants. It is the aim of this study to determine if antimicrobial activity can be incorporated into these important biomaterials for sustained release to control bioburden follow implantation.