Innovation Anthology #446:
Bacteria can live as single cells or they can cluster into slimy colonies called biofilms.
Biofilms are responsible for about 80 percent of infections, including hospital superbugs that are highly resistant to antibiotics.
Edmonton company Innovotech specializes in biofilms and is developing alternate killer treatments based on silver.
But as Dr. Patricia Nadworny explains, not just any silver. Dr. Nadworny is an industry associate funded through Alberta Innovates Technology Futures.
DR. PATRICIA NADWORNY: If you took the silver that’s in say jewelry which is metallic silver and has no charge, it will not have any impact on bacteria at all. The other problem is that silver can often be inactivated by bodily fluids and so on. And so again it’s not available to kill the bacteria. And so the products we’re working on we’re really excited about because it has a higher charge and so it’s more reactive with bacteria but at the same time we’ve developed formulations that actually are not readily inactivated by bodily fluids.
According to Dr. Patricia Nadworny, Innovotech’s silver technology holds promise for applications in agriculture and medicine.
Thanks today to Alberta Innovates Technology Futures
FOR INNOVATION ANTHOLOGY
I’M CHERYL CROUCHER
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Alberta Innovates Technology Futures
Alberta Innovates launched its consolidation on November 1, 2016
780-450-5111
albertatechfutures.ca
250 Karl Clark Road,
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
T6N 1E4
Program Date: 2012-01-10