Skip to Content

Dissolve to Solve

Hospitals are dangerous places. About 2 million patients a year acquire new infections in them, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A major cause is bacterial contamination of urinary catheters, breathing tubes and implants-a situation made more difficult by the fact that some bacteria form tough antibiotic-resistant films on such devices. University of Texas Health Science Center biomaterials researcher H. Ralph Rawls is developing a nontoxic polymer coating that slowly dissolves in bodily fluids. The coating could be applied to almost any object doctors put into the body. As the polymer dissolves layer by layer, it frees surface-attaching bacteria; this process prevents the formation of a bacterial film and makes the germs susceptible to therapeutic drugs and the immune system. The longer the expected contact between the instrument and the body, the thicker the polymer coating. This summer, Rawls plans to add another function to the polymer by incorporating drugs that encourage tissue repair; he hopes the material will be available clinically in three to five years.

Keep Reading

Most Popular

The inside story of how ChatGPT was built from the people who made it

Exclusive conversations that take us behind the scenes of a cultural phenomenon.

How Rust went from a side project to the world’s most-loved programming language

For decades, coders wrote critical systems in C and C++. Now they turn to Rust.

Design thinking was supposed to fix the world. Where did it go wrong?

An approach that promised to democratize design may have done the opposite.

Sam Altman invested $180 million into a company trying to delay death

Can anti-aging breakthroughs add 10 healthy years to the human life span? The CEO of OpenAI is paying to find out.

Stay connected

Illustration by Rose Wong

Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review

Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.

Thank you for submitting your email!

Explore more newsletters

It looks like something went wrong.

We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at customer-service@technologyreview.com with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive.