Dr Sabeel Valappil is a Lecturer in the University of Liverpool’s Department of Health Services Research and School of Dentistry, within the Institute of Psychology, Health and Society.
“I travelled to Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology in Trivandrum, India to collaborate with Dr Chandra P Sharma on our UK-India Education and Research Initiative (UKIERI) funded project, which aims to produce novel nano-composites of gallium and silver quantum dots for biomedical applications.
“The project seeks to further develop antibacterial properties of gallium and silver in a biocompatible manner. In my lecture to Dr Sharma’s group I stressed the urgency of developing alternative strategies to address the issue of the scarcity of new antibiotics, and the danger posed by growing resistance among bacteria.
“Gallium has recently emerged as a new generation antibacterial ion that may be useful in dealing with antibiotic resistant bacteria, as it has a different mode of antibacterial action by affecting the bacteria at multiple sites. This makes resistance to this antibacterial agent a remote probability.
“The project is envisaged to provide an excellent platform for UK-India Education and Research collaboration by exploiting the expertise of my group, as UK pioneers in developing gallium for antibacterial applications, along with Dr. Sharma’s group, who work on understanding the blood/tissue material interactions at the interface and develop modified surfaces for various biomedical applications, including drug delivery systems.”
