How nanotechnology-enabled concepts could contribute to the prevention, diagnosis and therapy of bacterial infections.

Inge K Herrmann

doi:10.1186/s13054-015-0957-y

Abstract

This viewpoint summarizes a selection of nanotechnology-based key concepts relevant to critical care medicine. It focuses on novel approaches for a trigger-dependent release of antimicrobial substances from degradable nano-sized carriers, the ultra-sensitive detection of analytes in body fluid samples by plasmonic and fluorescent nanoparticles, and the rapid removal of pathogens from whole blood using magnetic nanoparticles. The concepts presented here could significantly contribute to the prevention, diagnosis and therapy of bacterial infections in future and it is now our turn to bring them from the bench to the bedside.

Highlights

This viewpoint summarizes a selection of nanotechnology-based key concepts relevant to critical care medicine
The advent of nanotechnology has brought with it an astonishing number of novel tools enabling novel technological solutions
I discuss recent developments in the field of nanoscale engineering that could potentially be employed to Herrmann Critical Care (2015) 19:239 address major challenges in critical care medicine

Summary

Introduction

This viewpoint summarizes a selection of nanotechnology-based key concepts relevant to critical care medicine. I will focus on a few landmark concepts that could potentially be useful in the prevention, detection and treatment of bacterial infection and sepsis. A trigger-dependent release of silver ions has been achieved by using silver nanoparticle-decorated biodegradable tricalcium phosphate particles (Fig. 1).

Results

Conclusion