Momentum - The Magazine for Virginia Tech Mechanical Engineering Vol. 3 No. 3 Fall 2018 | Page 17

STORY BY ROSAIRE BUSHEY
MECHANICAL ENGINEERING
Modeling
framework
may lower
biomedical
device infections
A recent article in the American Chemical Society’s Applied Materials & Interfaces
journal introduces a new thermodynamic-based modeling framework to solve a
problem that may one day result in lowering the instances of biomedical-device
associated infections.
The modeling breakthrough came from an interdisciplinary team of Macromole-
cules and Innovation Institute faculty led by Bahareh Behkam, an associate professor
of mechanical engineering in the College of Engineering, working with Amrinder
Nain and Michael Ellis, also associate professors in mechanical engineering, and
Professor Alan Esker, Chair of the Chemistry Department in the College of Science.
“Healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) are a major cause of death in the United
States and add up to $45 billion in additional health care costs annually,” Behkam
said. “Up to seventy percent of HAIs are attributable to microbial biofilm growth on
implantable medical devices, particularly catheters.”
Because items like catheters are inserted into the patient’s body, the buildup of
biofilm is often only detected after symptoms occur, which is after the infection has
taken hold. In fact, catheter-associated infections are the most common cause of
secondary bloodstream infection with substantial mortality rates.
For many years, the gold standard for prevention of microbial adhesion, the first
step to microbial biofilm formation, has been the chemical modification of the
MOMENTUM
FALL 2018
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