Bioengineering of Functional Nanosilver Nanogels for Smart Healthcare Systems

Abstract

Functional designing of nanogels has become an attractive domain of biomedical engineering to develop bioactive materials with innovative features for the human healthcare system. Nanosilver has attracted enormous attention due to its wide antimicrobial spectrum and ability to kill almost all types of bacteria in its vicinity. However, the most crucial challenge for bioscientists is the lack of binding ability of nanosilver with the material surfaces that allow nanosilver to leach out to the surrounding tissue and exert toxicity while the biomaterial is in contact with the living system. Designing nanosilver within a nanogel confinement offers enormous possibilities to develop functional bioactive nanoparticles that may be bonded to any biomaterial surface via the nanogel functionality. This approach requires the proper combination of material science with nanotechnology and biotechnology to innovate interesting domain of functional nanogels with unique features. This work aims at providing a critical review on the current progress, approaches, and vision in designing nanosilver‐entrapped nanogel particles with diverse functionality, and their bioactivity against microorganisms for human healthcare devices.

Smart Designing of Tragacanth Gum by Graft Functionalization for Advanced Materials

“…[ 45 ] The microbial attachment and its proliferation may lead to the biofilm formation result into enhanced complications and this needs a pro‐active approach to create surfaces and matrixes with antimicrobial feature ( Figure ). [ 46 ] The most effective approach would be to immobilize or encapsulate the bioactive component in TG hydrogel for its subsequent delivery of antimicrobial agent to the surrounding environment.…”

Nanogels: A novel approach in antimicrobial delivery systems and antimicrobial coatings

“…Therefore, it is imperative to develop novel antimicrobial agents and new treatment strategies [ 155 , 156 ]. The recent advancements in the development of antimicrobial nanogels offered a promising approach to tackle multidrug-resistant bacteria [ [157] , [158] , [159] , [160] ]. This section will first provide the applications of nanogels used as delivery tools for conventional biocidal agents; then, the focus will be on the recent development of nanogels with intrinsic antimicrobial actions.…”

Broad spectrum antimicrobial PDMS-based biomaterial for catheter fabrication

“…Recently, casting a blend of biomaterials with the antimicrobial agents to produce composite biomaterials has been demonstrated [ 15 ]. While surfaces that were functionalized, grafted or coated with antimicrobials were observed to only be bacteriostatic, biomaterials that were impregnated or casted with antimicrobials appear to exhibit bactericidal properties [ 16 ].…”

“…Nevertheless, being chemically inert, PDMS lacks reactive functional groups on its surface. Pre-treatments such as high-energy treatment or chemical etching are usually required to incorporate useful functional groups for surface modification [ 16 ]. On the other hand, impregnation of useful antimicrobials or biocides into commercially available silicone catheters is heavily dependent on the solubility of the antimicrobial compounds in organic solvents [ 14 , 17 , 18 ].…”