Executive Summary : | This project aims to develop a wound healing bandage that exhibits a dual function of antibacterial as well as detecting an early-stage infection. To achieve this, a cotton fabric shall be chosen and subjected to surface derivatization to meet the required criteria. The project shall be carried out in three phases, which are briefly summarized below: (1) The cotton fabric shall be surface derivatized to bring quaternary ammonium moieties on the surface, over which AgCl shall be anchored in a molecularly-dispersed fashion. The antibacterial efficacy shall be optimized as a function of the surface derivatization parameters. (2) In the second step, an intracellular enzyme in the procaryotic systems shall be detected using the specific chromogenic substrate of the enzyme. For instance, the quaternary ammonium derivatized cotton fabric shall also be studied for its adsorption capacity towards an indicator, e.g., Chlorophenol Red-β-D-galactopyranoside (CPRG). CPRG undergoes a change from colorless to red color in the presence of the enzyme β-galactosidase, which is an inducible one that is available intracellularly in microbes such as bacteria and fungi that infect any wound site. The release profile of this enzyme shall be studied as a function of the microbial cell membrane lysis by the quaternized surfaces during infection and the activity of the enzyme against its substrate CPRG shall be monitored colorimetrically and spectrophotometrically. (3) The fabrics obtained as per points (1) and (2) shall be superimposed one over the other in such a way that the antibacterial layer shall be in direct contact with the wound, whereas the indicator layer shall be over it. The optimized architecture shall lead to the development of the dressing material that would exhibit both antibacterial activity and colorimetric detection of any microbe-borne infection at the wound site. |