Speaker: Prof. Kaushik Chatterjee
Department of Materials Engineering, IISc Bangalore
Abstract:
Functional surfaces with micro-nanoscale topographies are found on several natural surfaces, such as plant leaves, animal skins, and insect wings. More recently, nanostructured surfaces have emerged as a chemical-free alternative for antibacterial surfaces with potential applications in biomedical and nosocomial settings. Such surfaces kill microbes by penetrating and rupturing their cell wall and, therefore, do not exacerbate the already ballooning risk of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). However, successful translation and widespread adoption of this technology depend on the development of a robust understanding of the bacteria-nanostructure interaction and scalable emulation on desired substrates. Over the past decade, our group has been working towards these goals by generating bioinspired nanostructures on ceramics, metals, and polymers and discovered interesting links between the nanomechanical properties of the nanostructures and their ability to impart damage to bacterial cell wall. We have shown that the bulk mechanical properties, as well as the aspect ratio of the nanostructure, are key factors in determining their deformation behavior as nanostructures and that the difficulties in direct imaging of such systems can be circumvented with the help of mathematical and computational modeling. Nanostructured bactericidal surfaces hold significant promise in tackling AMR, and modeling can play an important role in unraveling their true potential.
Bio-data of speaker:
Prof. Kaushik Chatterjee received his B.E. in Metallurgy from Bengal Engineering College, M.S. in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Virginia, and Ph.D. in Bioengineering from the Pennsylvania State University. He worked as a postdoctoral fellow jointly at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the National Institutes of Health. He joined the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, in 2011, where he is currently a Professor in the Departments of Materials Engineering and Bioengineering and serves as the Chair of the Department of Bioengineering. His research group works on materials for biomedical applications and, in recent years, is particularly focused on the use of 3D printing and additive manufacturing technologies for healthcare. He is currently an Associate Editor for the Journal of Materials Chemistry B and Materials Advances.
Dr. Anindo Roy completed his bachelor’s in Metallurgy and Materials Engineering from the Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology, Shibpur, in 2017. He then joined the Indian Institute of Science as a graduate student. His doctoral work was focused on generating bioinspired nanoscale architectures on clinically and biomedically relevant surfaces for the development of new age, chemical free antibacterial surfaces. Currently, he is working as a Research Associate at the Department of Materials Engineering at IISc, where his research interests include bacterial traps, functional surfaces, and bacteria-nanostructure interactions.
Organized by:
InSIS and Center for Structural Integrity of Safety Critical Systems, IIT Madras
