The Development of Novel Antimicrobial Materials to Prevent Pathogenic Infections

Antimicrobial resistance, AMR, is globally responsible for 1.2 million annual fatalities. Antimicrobial resistance, AMR, is already responsible for 1.2 million annual fatalities. Failure to address the issue by 2050 could result in 10 million deaths per year, costing the global economy £66 trillion. To put this into context, the predicted death rates for cancer will be 8.2 million by the same year. As current treatment and preventative antimicrobial technologies fail, minor injuries and simple surgeries, such as a scratch on the knee, could soon become fatal. To address this global healthcare emergency the World Health Organisation, WHO, have highlighted there is a clinical unmet need for novel technologies that can treat and prevent such pathogenic diseases.


At MetalloBio we are directly answering this unmet need, in line with the UK Government's 20-year vision to control and contain AMR by 2040\. As part of highly skilled team, MetalloBio have developed two lead antimicrobial additives, that can be incorporated into different materials and coatings. These materials can be applied to medical and non-medical applications such as catheter coatings, orthopedics, wound care, paints, textiles and food packaging. MetalloBio's antimicrobial functionalised materials will be able to prevent infection, transmission and spread of harmful pathogens, improving human health and patient quality of life.

The antimicrobial additives have higher activities than clinical antibiotics and current antimicrobial additives, but crucially this activity is retained against drug-resistant bacteria, including those highlighted by the WHO as a critical priority. The complexes have a modular synthesis, like Lego, we can exchange the "building blocks" of our additives to make a whole series of these complexes. Additionally, they are non-toxic and highly active when incorporated into different polymeric materials. As these complexes are highly innovative, and radically different from anything on the market, the likelihood of emergence of resistance is highly reduced.

This project will directly build upon preclinical data on the additives, and proof-of-concept coating studies, to optimise our antimicrobial materials. Antimicrobial and antibiofilm efficacy studies will be completed on a broad-spectrum of pathogens and the coatings will be applied to a number of different materials to broaden the application potential. The recent COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the catastrophic effects of a global pandemic, increasing MetalloBio's technology's application potential will help in the fight to prevent AMR causing the next pandemic. MetalloBio will work closely with commercial partners to ensure the technology will be applicable in commercial environments.