Liquid Metal Shredder Kills Superbugs Without Drugs
14th January 2020
Rather than fight with chemicals, which bacteria will almost always develop resistance to, the researchers set out to find ways to physically attack the bugs. After all, humans, for example, could evolve resistance to mild poisons over time, but not being stabbed.
The team’s solution was to use magnetic, liquid metal nanoparticles. When exposed to a low-intensity magnetic field, these droplets change their shape, with their edges becoming sharp enough to puncture cell walls and biofilms – the sturdy, sticky substance that colonies of bacteria build to protect themselves from antibiotics.