Immobilization of bacteriophages on implants with plasma deposited organic coatings

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The performance of implantable medical devices can often be improved by a surface engineering procedureallowing to either tune the surface chemistry to improve interactions with surrounding biological media or tograft active elements that will have a direct effect. Our laboratory has developed a flexible surface engineeringprocedure that can achieve either of these effects. We use cold plasma (an ionized gas produced as anelectrical discharge) to deposit organic coatings containing nitrogen, oxygen and sulfur functional groups. Ourmethod is to mix a film forming gas, such as ethylene, with a source of heteroatom, such at ammonia, and toactivate those gasses in a plasma to trigger the formation of organic coatings. The properties of these organiccoatings can be adjusted with the process parameters, such as gas composition. The functional groups in thecoatings can either indirectly affect cell processes by governing protein adhesion or be used as chemicalanchors to covalently bond active molecules.Our proposed industrial partner, Phagelux (Canada) Inc. has developed a technology to attach bacteriophages tothe surface of titanium implants to prevent infection following implantation. They have used plasma depositedorganic coating to favor the attachment of the phages. However, their method involves toxic and corrosivegasses offering limited adjustability in terms of coating properties. Moreover, they have limited accessibility tothe method as it is done through an international subcontractant. We propose a research collaboration todevelop and optimize a procedure to attach bacteriophages to titanium samples using our highly tunable plasmapolymerized coatings. The development of a successful procedure would initiate a long-term collaborationinvolving in-vivo testing of the titanium implants while Phagelux expands its research activities in Canada.