MIT researcher creates anti-flu paint
Daubed onto doorknobs or aircraft tray tables, prickly polymer punctures bacterium and virus cells; Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus reduced by a factor of 10,000 within minutes
Many homeland security professionals consider reading about science to be as boring as watching paint dry. Here is a technology that actual requires it. Alexander Klibanov, a chemist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has developed a substance that, once applied like paint to a doorkknob or other much-molested item, kills the flu virus instantaneously. The structure of the polymer involved — when spread out it creates a surface covered with tiny fragments that point upwards — punctures the surface of the bacteria cell membranes or the fatty walls of a virus . Although not ready for the market, Klibanov’s tests on glass slips covered with the bristly polymer showed it extremely effective against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus, reducing the pathogens’ abundance by at least a factor of 10,000.
The group reported their results in a paper published on-line 13 November by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA. The research was funded by the Army Research Office and the National Institute of Health.
-read more in this Scientific American report
