Projects

The importance of antimicrobial membranes has significantly grown during the recent COVID pandemic era. Nanofibrous antimicrobial membranes have seen novel applications in biomedicine, such as face masks against viral threats or wound dressings used in chronic patient care. Composite electrospun nanofiber meshes are convenient to use as antimicrobial membranes. At present, the lack of automated, inline quality control limits both the pilot and large scale production of multi-material multilayer composite membranes. The alternative, manual re-calibration greatly limits production throughput and thus commercial viability. The goal of this R&D activity is to create technology for scalable inline quality control of electrospun nanofiber meshes. Using cognitive electronics, the system will be capable of continuous multiparameter monitoring and electrospinning process control to maintain optimal product quality and distribution.

New or reoccurring bacterial threats are a major challenge of this century, and a delayed response due to the lack of field-testing options risks human lives and causing an epidemic. Classical microbiology techniques are relatively slow, while cytometric methods allow the measurement of cell count, morphology etc. in an easy, reliable, and fast way. State of the art flow cytometers are high-throughput benchtop instruments that are neither portable nor cheap enough for field testing, causing logistic delays in bacterial testing in remote areas and conflict zones or where infrastructure is limited. The goal of this R&D activity is to create the proof of concept of and develop the methodology for low-cost, fully portable flow cytometers based on droplet microfluidics, which will not only allow field analysis of bacteria, but will have a single-cell resolution. Furthermore, through cognitive electronics, the system will be easy to use and fully automated from sample input to result output.

There are many antimicrobial substances (e.g. antibiotics) in the use globally that are starting to lose their activity against pathogenic microbes (antimicrobial resistance). This is serious threat to human health and economy in general. This project aimed to develop new experimental technologies to investigate certain molecular mechanisms in the nature that can lead to such resistance. We used novel droplet technologies to investigate such mechanisms at single cell level in bacteria population. Water-in-oil-droplets are like small test-tubes that enable carrying out parallel investigation of biological and chemical phenomena in tens and even hundreds of thousands of such “test-tubes”. This high-throughput approach helps understanding biological problems better as large experimental datasets help seeing the patterns better with more confidence. In our case we investigated phenotypic heterogeneity in genetically identical bacteria populations that can lead to survival of bacteria during antibiotic treatment. Firstly, we developed user-friendly droplet analysis tools that help investigating biological experiments in droplets. Using droplets for experimental analysis is not yet mainstream, often because of the need for highly specialized tools or trained personnel. We addressed this issue by developing and comparing droplet tools that are easy to implement in non-droplet biological and chemical laboratories worldwide. Secondly, we used developed tools in our own laboratory to investigate how different is antibiotic impact on bacteria that are in different stages in their life cycle. This knowledge helps understanding why some bacteria manage to survive during antibiotic treatment without developing mutations. This in turn can help researchers to prevent spread of antibiotic resistance. As a project manager I am extremely satisfied that we developed user-friendly droplet technologies that help widening the access to droplet technologies worldwide.