#AntiMicrobial

[materialsscienceandengineering]

Enhancing the antimicrobial activity of silver nanoparticles against pathogens by using tea extracts

Researchers at the Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IPC PAS) have demonstrated that green tea–silver nanoparticles as a powerful tool against pathogens such as bacteria and yeast. Their work is published in Nanoscale Advances. Their goal was to develop an efficient method to combat bacteria that are otherwise unaffected by antimicrobial agents, such as antibiotics. The overuse of antibiotics has led to the emergence of resistance to these compounds, becoming one of the biggest health threats worldwide.

Read more.

[miss-biophys]

We found a new antibiotic target in bacteria!!

It took almost 4 years, but the fruits of my postdoc research are finally here! In our paper (with me as the first author), just published in Nature Communications, we decipher a working mechanism of an antibiotic that targets the membrane of bacteria in an unprecedented way!

enhanced PDF: https://rdcu.be/dgj2d web version: https://lnkd.in/eRpxr4jg

And how does it work?

The antibiotic AMC-109 first self-assembles into stable aggregates with a cationic surface. These aggregates then specifically target bacteria cells and insert into their membrane.

You can see the process how we simulated it in a computer on the figure below. Grey-Blue is the antibiotic, Red-Yellow are lipids that together form a membrane.

@jmelcr did this awesome simulation work! You are an amazing scientist, jmelcr! I love you and it seems our collaboration did not ruin our marriage. Not yet, anyway 😄.

After insertion into the bacterial membrane, the antibiotic dissolves membrane nanodomains affecting membrane function without formation of any pores or holes in the membrane.

Below is the series of high-speed atomic force microscopy images that shows the process of dissolution of membrane nanodomains. Yellow are the membranes extracted from bacteria laying flat on a hard surface (black). The membranes contain nanodomains (bright yellow) that are important in living bacteria for its survival. Addition of antibiotic dissolves them.

More studies will follow that use this new target in bacteria giving us an advantage over untreatable superbugs. I will keep you posted. And... keep your fingers crossed. It's research after all, so we never know if and how well it's going to work.

[ioag]

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is one of the most pleasant bacteria to identify from a microbiologist's perspective. In turn, from the veterinarian's point of view - one of the worst to treat.

[jcmarchi]

A protein found in human sweat may protect against Lyme disease

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/a-protein-found-in-human-sweat-may-protect-against-lyme-disease/

A protein found in human sweat may protect against Lyme disease

Lyme disease, a bacterial infection transmitted by ticks, affects nearly half a million people in the United States every year. In most cases, antibiotics effectively clear the infection, but for some patients, symptoms linger for months or years.

Researchers at MIT and the University of Helsinki have now discovered that human sweat contains a protein that can protect against Lyme disease. They also found that about one-third of the population carries a genetic variant of this protein that is associated with Lyme disease in genome-wide association studies.

It’s unknown exactly how the protein inhibits the growth of the bacteria that cause Lyme disease, but the researchers hope to harness the protein’s protective abilities to create skin creams that could help prevent the disease, or to treat infections that don’t respond to antibiotics.

“This protein may provide some protection from Lyme disease, and we think there are real implications here for a preventative and possibly a therapeutic based on this protein,” says Michal Caspi Tal, a principal research scientist in MIT’s Department of Biological Engineering and one of the senior authors of the new study.

Hanna Ollila, a senior researcher at the Institute for Molecular Medicine at the University of Helsinki and a researcher at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, is also a senior author of the paper, which appears today in Nature Communications. The paper’s lead author is Satu Strausz, a postdoc at the Institute for Molecular Medicine at the University of Helsinki.

A surprising link

Lyme disease is most often caused by a bacterium called Borrelia burgdorferi. In the United States, this bacterium is spread by ticks that are carried by mice, deer, and other animals. Symptoms include fever, headache, fatigue, and a distinctive bulls-eye rash.

Most patients receive doxycycline, an antibiotic that usually clears up the infection. In some patients, however, symptoms such as fatigue, memory problems, sleep disruption, and body aches can persist for months or years.

Tal and Ollila, who were postdocs together at Stanford University, began this study a few years ago in hopes of finding genetic markers of susceptibility to Lyme disease. To that end, they decided to run a genome-wide association study (GWAS) on a Finnish dataset that contains genome sequences for 410,000 people, along with detailed information on their medical histories.

This dataset includes about 7,000 people who had been diagnosed with Lyme disease, allowing the researchers to look for genetic variants that were more frequently found in people who had had Lyme disease, compared with those who hadn’t.

This analysis revealed three hits, including two found in immune molecules that had been previously linked with Lyme disease. However, their third hit was a complete surprise — a secretoglobin called SCGB1D2.

Secretoglobins are a family of proteins found in tissues that line the lungs and other organs, where they play a role in immune responses to infection. The researchers discovered that this particular secretoglobin is produced primarily by cells in the sweat glands.

To find out how this protein might influence Lyme disease, the researchers created normal and mutated versions of SCGB1D2 and exposed them to Borrelia burgdorferi grown in the lab. They found that the normal version of the protein significantly inhibited the growth of Borrelia burgdorferi. However, when they exposed bacteria to the mutated version, twice as much protein was required to suppress bacterial growth.

The researchers then exposed bacteria to either the normal or mutated variant of SCGB1D2 and injected them into mice. Mice injected with the bacteria exposed to the mutant protein became infected with Lyme disease, but mice injected with bacteria exposed to the normal version of SCGB1D2 did not.

“In the paper we show they stayed healthy until day 10, but we followed the mice for over a month, and they never got infected. This wasn’t a delay, this was a full stop. That was really exciting,” Tal says.

Preventing infection

After the MIT and University of Helsinki researchers posted their initial findings on a preprint server, researchers in Estonia replicated the results of the genome-wide association study, using data from the Estonian Biobank. These data, from about 210,000 people, including 18,000 with Lyme disease, were later added to the final Nature Communications study.

The researchers aren’t sure yet how SCGB1D2 inhibits bacterial growth, or why the variant is less effective. However, they did find that the variant causes a shift from the amino acid proline to leucine, which may interfere with the formation of a helix found in the normal version.

They now plan to investigate whether applying the protein to the skin of mice, which do not naturally produce SCGB1D2, could prevent them from being infected by Borrelia burgdorferi. They also plan to explore the protein’s potential as a treatment for infections that don’t respond to antibiotics.

“We have fantastic antibiotics that work for 90 percent of people, but in the 40 years we’ve known about Lyme disease, we have not budged that,” Tal says. “Ten percent of people don’t recover after having antibiotics, and there’s no treatment for them.”

“This finding opens the door to a completely new approach to preventing Lyme disease in the first place, and it will be interesting to see if it could be useful for preventing other types of skin infections too,” says Kara Spiller, a professor of biomedical innovation in the School of Biomedical Engineering at Drexel University, who was not involved in the study.

The researchers note that people who have the protective version of SCGB1D2 can still develop Lyme disease, and they should not assume that they won’t. One factor that may play a role is whether the person happens to be sweating when they’re bitten by a tick carrying Borrelia burgdorferi.

SCGB1D2 is just one of 11 secretoglobin proteins produced by the human body, and Tal also plans to study what some of those other secretoglobins may be doing in the body, especially in the lungs, where many of them are found.

“The thing I’m most excited about is this idea that secretoglobins might be a class of antimicrobial proteins that we haven’t thought about. As immunologists, we talk nonstop about immunoglobulins, but I had never heard of a secretoglobin before this popped up in our GWAS study. This is why it’s so fun for me now. I want to know what they all do,” she says.

The research was funded, in part, by Emily and Malcolm Fairbairn, the Instrumentarium Science Foundation, the Academy of Finland, the Finnish Medical Foundation, the Younger Family, and the Bay Area Lyme Foundation.

[ghoulsencyclopedia]

Black Pepper

Associations:

Strength

Energy

Renewal

Emotional Growth

Protection

Purification

Warmth

Confidence

Exorcism

Properties:

Antimicrobial

Preservative

Stimulating

Aromatherapeutic

Antioxidant

Correspondences:

Third Eye, Solar Plexus

Fire

Mars

Masculine

[mokshalifestyleinternational]

GERANIUM HYDROSOL

Geranium hydrosol provides all of the advantages of essential oils without intense intensity. Geranium Hydrosol has a calming and pleasant perfume that is reminiscent of roses. It is utilized in a variety of goods, including diffusers, air fresheners, and other fragrances. It has the ability to boost mood and promote hormonal balance. It is used in skin care products due to its anti-aging and cleaning properties. It is used to enhance the nourishing and fragrant properties of bathing goods such as soaps, body washes, cleansers, and others. It also has several hair advantages, such as hydrating the scalp and encouraging hair growth. Geranium hydrosol contains antibacterial and antimicrobial characteristics that aid in skin protection and infection prevention.

[healthtrend]

What is Antimicrobial resistance? Its Examples, Causes, and Prevention

What is antimicrobial resistance?

Antimicrobials are medicinal drugs that treat diseases resulting from microbes. In this context, the phrase "resistance" approaches a lack of sensitivity to those medications. To resist an antimicrobial is to prevent the medicine from running.

This can cause:

More acute infections.

Longer healing instances.

Increased medical expenses.

The use of extra pricey pills or riskier processes.

Possible death.

What are microbes?

Microbes are tiny organisms that can input your body. Examples of microbes consist of:

Bacteria.

Viruses.

Fungi.

Parasites.

Microbes have lived on the earth for three.5 billion years in every form of environment, making them the top severe and adaptable shape of life in the world.

What are the examples of antimicrobials?

Scientists have invented many antimicrobials – medicinal drugs that treat ailments from microbes. A very brief list includes:

Penicillin (an antibiotic).

Valacyclovir (an antiviral agent).

Fluconazole (an antifungal medication).

Praziquantel (an anti-parasite medicine).

What illnesses do microbes cause? What conditions do antimicrobials treat?

Microbes cause a selection of ailments that antimicrobials treat. Some examples encompass:

Strep throat.

Pneumonia.

Food poisoning.

Colds.

Influenza (the flu).

Athlete's foot.

Yeast infections.

Tapeworms.

Gonorrhea.

Urinary tract infections.

If you've got one of these illnesses and it's a result of a resistant organism, your remedy might not work. Imagine enduring pneumonia, and regardless of how much penicillin you're taking, your signs and symptoms never leave. 

The microbe's inner you have developed in a way that allows them to preserve life and create inside you, despite the medicine designed to kill them.

This is international trouble – an international threat to public health.

How does antimicrobial resistance happen?

A microbe has five desires as soon as it enters your frame:

To reach the target site (for example, your lungs).

To connect to the goal web page.

To multiply.

To take vitamins from you, the host.

To avoid and/or survive any attacks via your immune system.

When you take an antimicrobial, the medication kills most of the microbes. But resistant microbes can also continue to exist.

What does the mutated gene or resistant germ do to the antimicrobials?

There are protection techniques a germ can use to resist antimicrobial medicine:

Limit the uptake of the medicine (the absorption or incorporation).

Change the drug's goal.

Deactivate the drugs (forestall them from operating).

Activate efflux of the drugs (kick the medicine out of the cells).

Is antimicrobial resistance and antibiotic resistance the same?

Antibiotic resistance refers especially to resistance to bacteria. Antimicrobial resistance refers to resistance to bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites.

When was antimicrobial resistance found?

Antimicrobial resistance wasn't found all of a sudden. To use penicillin, for example, is an antibiotic changed into invented in 1941, and resistance turned into diagnosis in:

1942: Penicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.

1967: Penicillin-resistant Streptococcus pneumonia.

1976: Penicillinase-producing Neisseria gonorrhoeae.

How common is antimicrobial resistance?

According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), at least a million humans per yr inside the United States turn out to get inflamed with resistant germs. At least 23,000 humans die as a result. Each year, situations as a result of antimicrobial resistance cause:

An anticipated $20 billion in extra healthcare expenses.

$35 billion in different charges to society as a whole.

More than eight million additional days of sanatorium care.

Who is suffering from antimicrobial resistance?

Any age may be affected by antimicrobial resistance, but you're at a higher risk if you have a vulnerable immune system or have frequent infections requiring antimicrobial remedies. The more you get ill, the more chance you have of contamination with a resistant germ.

Is antimicrobial resistance contagious?

Antimicrobial resistance germs can spread among people, animals, plants, and through meals, and they're also in the water, soil, and air.

What increases the danger of antimicrobial resistance?

The following have a position in increasing the rate of antimicrobial resistance:

Healthcare providers. Now and again, healthcare professionals prescribe antimicrobials that aren't wanted, at the incorrect dose, or for a beside-the-point period. Some healthcare vendors supply strain from sufferers to "strive some something" even when the precise purpose of symptoms is unknown. For example, healthcare professionals should not handle typical bloodless viral infections with antibiotics because antibiotics kill only microorganisms.

Broad-spectrum medicinal drugs. Sometimes a healthcare provider may additionally deal with an infection with a vast-spectrum antimicrobial that works towards the diffusion of microbes in preference to one unique germ. This can increase the chance of antimicrobial resistance.

Close touch at hospitals. The close contact between clinic employees and ill sufferers creates a situation that makes it easy for microbes to unfold.

Using antibiotics in agriculture. Using antibiotics in agriculture to sell growth in meals and animals is considered by a few scientists as prime trouble. Meat-producing animals given antibiotics can expand resistant bacteria. These resistant bacteria may additionally contaminate meat or different meal merchandise from the animals. The resistant microorganisms then get transferred to people who eat those foods.

How is antimicrobial resistance identified? What tests are accomplished?

Diagnostic laboratory assessments can discover which microbe is inflicting contamination and decide whether or not the microbes present are proof against certain antimicrobial medicinal drugs. However, those assessments can take days or even weeks. This is because microbes ought to grow in a laboratory earlier than they can get identified.

How is antimicrobial resistance handled?

Anyone with an antimicrobial-resistant infection may also need to:

Use specialized medication.

Take a better dose of an antimicrobial.

Take the medication for a longer duration.

Try multiple medicines in a mixture.

Experiment with non-remedy remedies.

How can antimicrobial resistance be prevented?

It's not feasible to cast off antimicrobial resistance, as microbes will continually be able to alter themselves and adapt to their environment. However, there are some ways you could restrict your publicity:

Work closely with a healthcare issuer to discuss signs and determine an appropriate medicine for any illness.

Follow the directions precisely for any prescription medication.

Never take every other man or woman's prescription medicinal drug or share yours with them.

Never save vintage prescription drugs for use at a later time.

Get vaccinations as encouraged.

Follow the right popular health practices consisting of a proper weight-reduction plan, exercise, getting enough sleep, and proper hygiene (especially common hand-washing) to prevent illness and the need for antimicrobial tablets.

[kuorganic]

Neem powder, it is made from the neem tree, gives a number of benefits for the body and mind. It is a popular natural medicine for diabetes patients. Neem powder have the ability to reduce blood sugar, which makes it a very helpful product for managing diabetes. It's a natural blood sugar control solution that helps regulate insulin sensitivity and optimizes glucose metabolism. Neem's anti-inflammatory and antioxidant qualities help prevent problems from diabetes. When combined with recommended therapies and a healthy lifestyle, regular usage of neem powder can help improve diabetes management. Please visit our website or amazon page to buy best organic neem powder.

[novobacwilting]

Brevibacillus laterosporus: A Powerful Agent in Antimicrobial Therapies

In recent years, the quest for effective antimicrobial agents has led to the exploration of various natural sources. Among these, Brevibacillus laterosporus has emerged as a notable bacterium, recognized for its potent antimicrobial properties. Products like Novobac have harnessed the power of this microorganism, offering promising solutions in the fight against harmful pathogens.

Understanding Brevibacillus laterosporus

Brevibacillus laterosporus is a spore-forming bacterium that belongs to the Bacillaceae family. It was first isolated in the early 20th century and has since been studied extensively for its unique characteristics. This bacterium is known for producing a variety of bioactive compounds, including enzymes, toxins, and antimicrobial peptides. These compounds exhibit a broad spectrum of activity against bacteria, fungi, and other microorganisms, making B. laterosporus a valuable tool in antimicrobial therapies.

The Antimicrobial Mechanism

The antimicrobial activity of B. laterosporus is attributed to several mechanisms. One of the primary methods is through the production of parasporal crystals, which are proteinaceous inclusions that can disrupt the cell walls of target pathogens. Additionally, B. laterosporus secretes enzymes such as chitinases and proteases, which degrade the cell walls of fungi and bacteria. These enzymes effectively inhibit the growth of pathogens, providing a natural and environmentally friendly alternative to chemical antimicrobials.

Novobac: Harnessing B. laterosporus for Health

Novobac is a product developed with the unique properties of B. laterosporus in mind. It is designed to provide a natural solution for managing microbial populations, particularly in environments where antibiotic resistance is a concern. Novobac leverages the bacterium's ability to produce antimicrobial peptides and enzymes, offering a multi-faceted approach to controlling harmful microorganisms.

One of the standout features of Novobac is its specificity and safety. Unlike broad-spectrum antibiotics that can disrupt beneficial microbiota, Novobac targets harmful pathogens without adversely affecting beneficial organisms. This selectivity is crucial in maintaining the balance of microbiomes in various settings, such as in agriculture, aquaculture, and even in clinical applications.

Applications and Benefits

The versatility of Novobac, derived from B. laterosporus, extends across multiple industries. In agriculture, it is used as a biopesticide to control plant pathogens, thereby reducing the reliance on chemical pesticides. In aquaculture, Novobac helps manage bacterial diseases in fish and shellfish, promoting healthier aquatic environments. Additionally, in healthcare, products based on B. laterosporus are being explored for their potential in treating infections, particularly in scenarios where antibiotic resistance poses a significant challenge.

Conclusion

As the world faces growing concerns over antibiotic resistance and the environmental impact of chemical antimicrobials, the need for natural and effective alternatives becomes more pressing. Brevibacillus laterosporus, with its robust antimicrobial properties, presents a promising solution. Products like Novobac exemplify the innovative use of this bacterium, offering safe, targeted, and eco-friendly options for managing microbial threats. As research continues, the potential applications of B. laterosporus in antimicrobial therapies are expected to expand, providing new tools in the global fight against infectious diseases.

[materialsscienceandengineering]

An edible CBD coating could extend the shelf life of strawberries

Soon, you'll be able to get a box of freshly picked, sweet strawberries from the grocery store or local farm stand. But it's disappointing when you get them home and find that the ones at the bottom have started to rot. To increase the berries' shelf life, researchers reporting in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces have incorporated cannabidiol—a non-hallucinogenic compound from cannabis known as CBD—and sodium alginate into an edible antimicrobial coating.

CBD is popular because of its potential therapeutic effects. But this cannabinoid has also been shown to have antioxidant and antimicrobial properties. In previous studies, CBD limited the growth of some bacteria and pathogenic fungi, such as the ones that cause fresh fruits and vegetables to rot.

However, the oily compound needs to be evenly distributed in water before it can be widely incorporated into foods or used for food preservation. One possible way to do this is to encapsulate the CBD molecules in edible polymers. So, Pongpat Sukhavattanakul, Sarute Ummartyotin and colleagues wanted to see if a food coating made using CBD-filled nanoparticles could promote antimicrobial activity and extend the freshness of strawberries.

Read more.

[miss-biophys]

New way of bacterial killing confirmed for the second time with another antibiotic!

My newest publication shows with high-speed atomic force microscopy how a new antibiotic attacks the membrane of bacteria. For this, I use outer membranes ("skin" of bacteria) of bacteria Staphylococcus aureus and look how the antibiotic affects them. We made our first discovery of a new way of bacterial killing a year ago: https://www.tumblr.com/miss-biophys/722540702731583488/we-found-a-new-antibiotic-target-in-bacteria?source=share. Now, we report that affecting molecular organization of the membrane might be more common than anticipated.

Full paper: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.nanolett.4c01873…

Healthy bacterial membrane is full of domains, thicker membrane regions vital for bacteria survival (left picture). Thanks to them, the bacterium can sense the surroundings, build a shielding layer around, sort its own biomolecules where they need to be, and more. Antibiotic N-alkylamide 3d insets itself into the membrane (middle picture) stopping and partially dissolving the domains. But affecting the domains is here only the first step of the activity. As the second step, the membrane is covered with supramolecular aggregates: balls, rods, and carpets (right picture). This could make the bacteria inaccessible to molecules from the outside and prevent waste disposal from the inside.

And now some pretty pictures from the high-speed atomic force microscope:

Yellow is the bacterial membrane laying flat on a surface. The bright yellow spots are the thicker domains. After addition of the antibiotic, the domains stop moving and dissolve. The membrane then starts spreading over the whole underlying surface.

The spread membrane is now everywhere. Yellow are the aggregates of the antibiotic sitting on the top of the spread membrane. We see rods, rods, twisted rods, carpets, and their mixture.

More exciting science in this field will follow!

[rskherbal]

नारियल पानी सेहत का ज़ामिन | ناریل پانی، صحت کا ضامن | Nariyal Pani Sehat Ka Zamin

اپنی صحت سے متعلق مشورہ کے لیے رابطہ کریں۔

آپ کی صحت وتندرستی کے لیے کوشاں رحیمی شفاخانہ بنگلور

अपने स्वास्थ्य संबंधी सलाह के लिए हमसे संपर्क करें।

रहीमी शिफा खाना बैंगलोर आपके स्वास्थ्य और कल्याण की कामना करती है।

Mob: 9343712908

Ph: 080-23180000 / 080-23397836

[jcmarchi]

New filtration material could remove long-lasting chemicals from water

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/new-filtration-material-could-remove-long-lasting-chemicals-from-water/

New filtration material could remove long-lasting chemicals from water

Water contamination by the chemicals used in today’s technology is a rapidly growing problem globally. A recent study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control found that 98 percent of people tested had detectable levels of PFAS, a family of particularly long-lasting compounds also known as “forever chemicals,” in their bloodstream.

A new filtration material developed by researchers at MIT might provide a nature-based solution to this stubborn contamination issue. The material, based on natural silk and cellulose, can remove a wide variety of these persistent chemicals as well as heavy metals. And, its antimicrobial properties can help keep the filters from fouling.

The findings are described in the journal ACS Nano, in a paper by MIT postdoc Yilin Zhang, professor of civil and environmental engineering Benedetto Marelli, and four others from MIT.

PFAS chemicals are present in a wide range of products, including cosmetics, food packaging, water-resistant clothing, firefighting foams, and antistick coating for cookware. A recent study identified 57,000 sites contaminated by these chemicals in the U.S. alone. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has estimated that PFAS remediation will cost $1.5 billion per year, in order to meet new regulations that call for limiting the compound to less than 7 parts per trillion in drinking water.

Contamination by PFAS and similar compounds “is actually a very big deal, and current solutions may only partially resolve this problem very efficiently or economically,” Zhang says. “That’s why we came up with this protein and cellulose-based, fully natural solution,” he says.

“We came to the project by chance,” Marelli notes. The initial technology that made the filtration material possible was developed by his group for a completely unrelated purpose — as a way to make a labelling system to counter the spread of counterfeit seeds, which are often of inferior quality. His team devised a way of processing silk proteins into uniform nanoscale crystals, or “nanofibrils,” through an environmentally benign, water-based drop-casting method at room temperature.

Zhang suggested that their new nanofibrillar material might be effective at filtering contaminants, but initial attempts with the silk nanofibrils alone didn’t work. The team decided to try adding another material: cellulose, which is abundantly available and can be obtained from agricultural wood pulp waste. The researchers used a self-assembly method in which the silk fibroin protein is suspended in water and then templated into nanofibrils by inserting “seeds” of cellulose nanocrystals. This causes the previously disordered silk molecules to line up together along the seeds, forming the basis of a hybrid material with distinct new properties.

By integrating cellulose into the silk-based fibrils that could be formed into a thin membrane, and then tuning the electrical charge of the cellulose, the researchers produced a material that was highly effective at removing contaminants in lab tests.

By integrating cellulose into the silk-based fibrils that could be formed into a thin membrane, and then tuning the electrical charge of the cellulose, the researchers produced a material that was highly effective at removing contaminants in lab tests. Pictured is an example of the filter.

Image: Courtesy of the researchers

Previous item Next item

The electrical charge of the cellulose, they found, also gave it strong antimicrobial properties. This is a significant advantage, since one of the primary causes of failure in filtration membranes is fouling by bacteria and fungi. The antimicrobial properties of this material should greatly reduce that fouling issue, the researchers say.

“These materials can really compete with the current standard materials in water filtration when it comes to extracting metal ions and these emerging contaminants, and they can also outperform some of them currently,” Marelli says. In lab tests, the materials were able to extract orders of magnitude more of the contaminants from water than the currently used standard materials, activated carbon or granular activated carbon.

While the new work serves as a proof of principle, Marelli says, the team plans to continue working on improving the material, especially in terms of durability and availability of source materials. While the silk proteins used can be available as a byproduct of the silk textile industry, if this material were to be scaled up to address the global needs for water filtration, the supply might be insufficient. Also, alternative protein materials may turn out to perform the same function at lower cost.

Initially, the material would likely be used as a point-of-use filter, something that could be attached to a kitchen faucet, Zhang says. Eventually, it could be scaled up to provide filtration for municipal water supplies, but only after testing demonstrates that this would not pose any risk of introducing any contamination into the water supply. But one big advantage of the material, he says, is that both the silk and the cellulose constituents are considered food-grade substances, so any contamination is unlikely.

“Most of the normal materials available today are focusing on one class of contaminants or solving single problems,” Zhang says. “I think we are among the first to address all of these simultaneously.”

“What I love about this approach is that it is using only naturally grown materials like silk and cellulose to fight pollution,” says Hannes Schniepp, professor of applied science at the College of William and Mary, who was not associated with this work. “In competing approaches, synthetic materials are used — which usually require only more chemistry to fight some of the adverse outcomes that chemistry has produced. [This work] breaks this cycle! … If this can be mass-produced in an economically viable way, this could really have a major impact.”

The research team included MIT postdocs Hui Sun and Meng Li, graduate student Maxwell Kalinowski, and recent graduate Yunteng Cao PhD ’22, now a postdoc at Yale University. The work was supported by the U.S. Office of Naval Research, the U.S. National Science Foundation, and the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology.

[ghoulsencyclopedia]

Allspice

Associations:

Protection

Abundance

Objectivity

Open Mindedness

Communication

Attraction

Spirituality

Unity

Leadership

Health

Vitality

Luck

Properties:

Antifungal

Antimicrobial

Anti Inflammatory

Digestive Aid

Pain Relief

Mood Booster

Respiratory Aid

Correspondence:

Mars

Fire

Masculine

Root, Sacral

Red, Brown

Autumn